Re: 'How can so many be duped?' [Village News, Benson letter, 12/30/21]

I’ll address three topics from the subject letter. First, reliability of news media. Fox News (and some of its commentators), NewsMax, and Oann have been sued for defamation by Dominion and Smartmatic, the companies that provided some of the hardware and software, respectively, used in the 2020 election. The media being sued made statements that had no factual basis and I believe factual content in these media is generally lacking. And that goes for Alex Jones and his Infowars, too.

Second, depending on news media for Covid information is risky: you should go straight to the CDC, the source. I don’t know what you’ve heard, or what you think you’ve heard, but no single part of the Covid protocol is 100% effective in preventing the disease and the CDC has never said it was. Here’s what they’ve always said: the vaccines are the most effective – up to 90% – but that begins to decline over time, and boosters are recommended. Otherwise, masks, social distancing, and hand washing are the best tools we have for slowing down (not stopping) the spread of Covid until we can get enough people vaccinated to equate to herd immunity. The next stage is Testing and Tracking, but we’re not there yet.

Third, regarding abortion, the subject letter asks, “I wonder what the baby would say?” I say the great majority of abortions are done in the first trimester. At that stage the “baby” is a fetus, about an inch and half long and weighing about a half ounce: it has no functioning brain or vocal cords, so it would say nothing. No, it’s not murder: murder is the deliberate taking of a person’s life. A fetus is not a person and it is not unique. Women in America produce millions of them every year.

John H. Terrell