Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 12, 1994 TAG: 9405120138
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
One feasible alternative has not been mentioned, and that's adoption.
There are many couples desiring to have families who cannot for biological reasons. There are also many women who experience unplanned pregnancies.
Although unplanned pregnancies aren't positive in and of themselves, the adoption that may result when prospective adoptive parents and birth mothers get together is an encouraging experience.
Today, adoptive parents aren't hiding their adoption experience, and birth parents are empowering adoptive parents to raise their children. Various levels of contact can be maintained between birth parents, adoptive parents and, of course, most important of all, the adopted children. These three are called the adoption triad.
Yes, adopted children are special. A birth family has made a conscious, informed decision regarding the child's life. An infertile couple has been able to increase their family and nurture a child. Adoption doesn't mean giving away babies. It means birth parents, who aren't emotionally and/or financially prepared to be parents, place the child in a home they've been involved in choosing.
My husband and I are recent adoptive parents (through a licensed, child-placing agency). It's impossible to express our thankfulness that our son's birth mother made the ultimate, responsible and loving decision in placing her baby for adoption. We hope to increase public awareness regarding adoption.
Adoption is the better choice.
VICKI HODGES BUENA VISTA
The whole world is our back yard
UPON HEARING Rick Boucher's proposal (April 9 news article by staff writer Greg Edwards, ``Boucher opposes I-73 route'') to route a scaled-down version of Interstate 73 down U.S. 460 and Virginia 100, I experienced a fleeting moment of not-in-my-back-yard relief. Bent Mountain's unique environment may not be in danger, after all. However, considering how other areas are now in the same predicament, I realize this issue goes beyond NIMBY, no matter where it ends up.
My roots are in the Midwest, but the Roanoke Valley's been my home for the past 17 years. Its beauty, natural resources and lifestyle are some of its biggest attractions. I've lived places where it takes two hours to inch down 15 miles of freeway. I've seen nature paved over, clear-cut mountains standing nude over runoff-swollen muddy creeks, foul-smelling brown air hanging over valleys once filled with sweet-smelling orange blossoms. Once nature's abused, there's almost no going back.
Perhaps hillsides can be replanted, but what about topsoil that's washed away and wildlife that can't be reclaimed? Even cleaner-burning engines and more stringent regulations haven't solved air-pollution problems.
Perhaps those complacent about large highway systems cutting through rural America and who glorify unleashed development by calling it ``progress'' should remember, ``You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.''
If it's not in my or your back yard, then where do we put more megahighways? Nowhere. A better use of tax revenues would be to invest them in improving and maintaining existing roads while developing creative and innovative projects for the 21st century - new, better and cleaner modes of transportation such as high-speed light-rail systems.
We need to realize the whole country (whole world) is our back yard. Only then can we make sound decisions for the future.
ROBERTA JOHNSON BENT MOUNTAIN
Pronoun statement was misunderstood
A REMARK I made at a recent Roanoke County Board of Supervisors work session was apparently misunderstood by staff writer Jan Vertefeuille.
In her April 28 news article, ``Pronoun problems aside ... ,'' she wrote that I `` ... weighed in that `they' and `we' were just fine with (me).'' Taken out of context, this remark wrongly implies that I approve of an artificial line of division between county staff and our school system.
At this meeting, our county administrator presented us with a superb budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This was made all the nicer by a new format implemented by our new budget director, who follows in the award-winning tradition of excellence set by his predecessor. Also, we'd just started a session ending almost 10 hours - and many agenda items and public hearings - later.
Hence, I had no desire to sit there while two supervisors quibbled over Hodge's use of pronouns in his annual budget letter to us. My remark, in part, was my way of saying ``let's get on with it.'' It was also my way of saying that the use of pronouns in a budget letter, read by only a very few, isn't the cause of any divisiveness, real or imagined, between supervisors and the School Board. It was merely a convenient way to keep things simple in an otherwise complex process.
I think we (and that includes everybody) have done a fine job with the budget process so far, and Roanoke County taxpayers should know the budget we'll put into effect this spring will be top quality.
ED KOHINKE ROANOKE COUNTY
Goode offers return to 'rural values'
STATE Sen. Virgil Goode has represented Franklin County and its citizens in the General Assembly for more than 20 years. During that time, he's served the county and its residents well and has always voted in their best interests. More importantly, he's always told the truth.
It's true our district is mostly rural. But I want to stress how effective he's been, and just how much we all need to get back to ``rural values '' he represents. I hear this every day. Now we have a chance to do exactly that.
Goode is the best, and we all love him. Wouldn't it be great if the state could feel as we do in Franklin County?
DOLORES MOCKEY GLADE HILL
by CNB