Deciding for yourself isn't freedom to choose

If Gov. DeSantis indeed believes that citizens of Florida should be able to decide for themselves about their health and their own body, then why the ongoing abortion debate? Allow women, their doctor and/or family, for once and for all to make their own decisions without interference of government. Why wear seatbelts? Why do we have our drinking age laws, or warnings for smoking? There is no consistency.

Annette Schmidt, Jupiter

Column on classifications brilliant

What a breath of fresh air and an urgent lesson for all readers of The Palm Beach Post. Jay Light’s article should be required reading for all elected politicians and for high school students in social studies classes. Why? Because in recent decades mainstream Americans have been deluged by the distortions and lies of Identity Politics.

Since the 1960s, the federal government classifies us into five groups: White, African-American, Hispanic (a made-up word), Asian, and Native American. The U. S. Census counts us by some form of those five named titles to this day. And government benefits are aimed at helping four of the groups as entitled, while the group named White is the oppressor of all the others and deserving of scorn – the new racism.

Mr. Light accurately explains why the whole idea of fitting every American into a certain ethnic, racial, label is demeaning, divisive and damaging to our common good. My own solution, my small way of pushing back, is to never identify myself by those titles on any government form. I am “other,” meaning I am an American.

Rosalie Pedalino Porter, Singer Island

At least one DeSantis follows the science

It's interesting that Mrs. DeSantis chose chemotherapy to fight her form of cancer. By doing so, she was following the recommendations of established science and, yet, both Mrs. DeSantis and her husband, Gov. Ron DeSantis, with whom she must have conferred before making her decision, are refusing to acknowledge receiving booster shots for COVID, also a recommendation of established science. It's obvious that this refusal is simply an attempt to appeal to a particular base of the Republican Party, a base he will need in his run for president. What he's really doing is telling us that the well-being of Floridians matters far less than his narrow self-serving ambitions.

Ellie Schweitzer, Palm Beach Gardens

Does freedom require the National Anthem?

Florida might be the next state to pass an unnecessary law forcing sports teams that receive money or tax breaks from the government to play the Star-Spangled Banner before games. (Is there a team that does not?) Texas and Louisiana have already passed such laws and several other states are on the path to do so. What a sham and charade: Force businesses to play the National Anthem; I assume to encourage patriotism and unity while at the same time passing voter suppression laws to prevent citizens from voting, or worse, preventing their legal votes from being counted. We get more Orwellian every day. Push symbolic patriotism on the public while preventing real acts of patriotism such as voting. And while we’re distracted as we sing about "the land of the free." Republican legislatures pass more laws that make us less safe, less healthy, less equal, and less free. Don't be distracted. Stay vigilant.

Scott Benarde, West Palm. Beach

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Gov. DeSantis' words 'deciding for yourself' ring hollow in abortion