To the editor:

We are hearing some unsettling news lately about the health care legislation that is being so quickly propelled through Congress. It is disturbing that there is such a rush to get it done, whether it is done right or just done quickly. It is reminiscent of oppressive measure taken by totalitarian governments in history.

Although there may not be many of us left who lived through World War II, surely we haven’t forgotten the horrifying atrocities inflicted on German citizens who, according to the Nazi government, were a “burden on society.” There were the mentally ill, the disabled and those who no longer were contributing members of society who were quietly disposed of by “doctors of death” or suffered strange and torturous experiments at the hand of scientists.

Who has the right to decide when an individual has lived his/her life and it needs to be terminated? This is a decision that needs to be made the family and their physician. To end a life simply because the individual no longer is able to contribute to society in a financial way is totally unacceptable.

The same is true of the preborn who surely are the most helpless of all. To think of government funds being advocated for funding abortions is crass and unfeeling in the extreme.

I would hope we of the older generation would care enough to let our voices be heard. Our country is changing, but let’s not forget what made it great. It certainly wasn’t a government that decided every aspect of one’s life.