Reader's Forum Why legislate laws for social responsibility?
To the editor:
I am very concerned where our country and the AAFP organization are heading. Why must we legislate laws for social responsibility? This current trend against the tobacco companies is just the beginning! What's next? (Legislation holding) auto makers responsible for "gas guzzlers" or SUVs as they are too dangerous on the road, and in accidents they cause more damage to little cars.
Our country was founded on the belief of rugged individualism, that people can think independently and have the ability to make decisions and be responsible for them. This attack on legitimate businesses in this country is un-American. It's very disingenuous and dishonest that President Clinton and most of the legislators say they are doing it for the children, when in fact this current anti-tobacco legislation is just a ruse to collect money from a legitimate industry to pay for social programs. The intent is not to get children or adults to quit smoking but to collect more taxes for more spending programs. If one wants to end smoking, then ban tobacco from U.S. markets like it was tried with alcohol during the Prohibition Era.
As with alcohol then, people would still find a way to smoke as they would do now, even with increased taxation.
There are already laws on the books not being enforced against minors purchasing, possessing and using tobacco products. What good does it do to pass more laws when society doesn't obey the existing ones? Our nation needs to return to the idea that made this country -- that people are responsible for their own actions. As I teach my children, you make choices all through life and then you have to live with the consequences. I have stood in grocery store lines watching parents buy cigarettes and then handing them to their child right in front of the clerk. What good does it do when the parent supports teenage smoking? You are told to mind your own business if you talk to them. As a physician, I tell every patient who smokes about the dangers of smoking and that they should quit, but I leave it up to them to make that choice. It's their responsibility, not ours, to quit smoking. Legislation through taxation is not going to make a difference, nor do I believe that was ever the intent anyway.
RICHARD OLSON, M.D.
Bemidji, Minn.
'I hope this special section encourages residents to do OB'
To the editor:
Thanks so much for the special section, "Family-Centered Maternity Care," in the March edition of FP Report.
I hope it will encourage residents to include obstetrics in their practice. When I started practice in a rural area in 1988, there was one obstetrician in town. In my second year of practice, that obstetrician died suddenly. I became the only doctor delivering babies in a three-county area. In 1992, I was able to receive training and privileges to perform Caesarean sections.
The word family is derived from the Latin word famulus, which means servant. As family physicians, I hope that we can continue to be servants for those who need us the most.
OSCAR F. LOVELACE JR., M.D.
Prosperity, S.C.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1998 by American Academy of Family Physicians.