Letter: To the Editor: Plight of children should be more of a concern

To the Editor:

We have had a number of letters to the editor recently where the writers expressed their concern about abortions and the unborn.

But perhaps we should also be concerned about the plight of children that have already been born. Right now in the United States, the richest country in the world, there are thousands of children who live in poverty, children who do not get enough to eat, who live in homes where the heat has been shut off, children who must live in shelters because their parents have lost their jobs or work for minimum wages which do not pay the rent.

Our foodshelves are being overwhelmed with families who need food for their children, and our shelters are filled to overflowing with families who no longer have a home.

There are thousands of children who do not have medical care, who end up in hospital emergency rooms when their illness has become critical. We have too many children in this country who walk around with a mouthful of cavities because many dentists refuse to treat children even if they are eligible for MA (Medical Assistance), because reimbursement for MA is so low that dentists lose money if they treat sick patients.

And then there are children whose mothers must work and who cannot afford day care. We do have subsidized day care programs, but they are underfunded and have long waiting lists. So these children are being cared for by their fathers or by their mother’s boyfriend or by some older child - often with disastrous results, as recent newspaper accounts of children being beaten to death by their “caregivers” have shown.

The plight of children in the USA is bad enough - it gets worse in Third World countries. In some of these countries, desperately poor parents will sell their 10 or 12 year old daughters into prostitution, there are little 4 or 5 year olds who spend long hours working in rug factories where they are poorly fed and often abused, and there are too many pictures of young children, often not more than 6 years old, barefoot, dirty, dressed in rags, who are hauling heavy bricks or rummage around in garbage dumps for food or things they can sell for food. It is a litany of woe–but this is the reality that we must face.

Perhaps if we were to focus our financial resources, our energies and our compassion on improving the living conditions of these already living children we would not only relieve a lot of suffering but we may also eliminate or at least reduce the conditions which cause people to seek abortions.

Ingrid Kizen

New Richmond

Tags: opinion, plight, children, poverty