Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I want to thank Ms. Thompson for expressing so clearly my concerns for the policy direction of the Republican Party ("I am a patriotic Democrat," Aug. 30 Readers Write).

I remember when a woman’s place was barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Even with the right to vote, my father-in-law told me I could vote, but not for John Kennedy. I never told him I did vote for JFK. I remember how we struggled for change.

With a candidate vowing to do away with Planned Parenthood and saying he supported reversal of Roe v. Wade, I begin to fear the direction this can go.

No one has seen or acknowledged that giving the government the power to say you may not have an abortion or contraception, we are giving them the power to say you must have an abortion, you may only have X number of children and who cannot have children at all.

The power belongs to the woman, her family, her doctor, her God. It does not ever belong to any government, church or state.

M...