To the Editor:
Ross Douthat (“Personal and Political,” column, Jan. 8) correctly notes that some very personal episodes in the lives of the Republican candidates, like the death of an infant after birth and adulterous affairs, have become startlingly public in the campaign cycle.
But he doesn’t mention the biggest reason: hypocrisy. Candidates, like Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, seek to impose on other people their personal and religious philosophies regarding what should be the most private of matters, like the definition of marriage and reproductive rights.
And despite advocating “small government” in general, on these matters they’d even go so far as to propose a constitutional amendment or leave law-making decisions to the states (whichever is easier) to carry out their beliefs.
PETER M. WARD
Melrose, Mass., Jan. 9, 2012
To the Editor:
Ross Douthat’s column about the coverage of Rick Santorum’s private life points to a continuing debate about the media coverage of those who run for public office. While we are all entitled to a significant amount of privacy, politicians should expect that their private lives will be scrutinized in ways considered excessive for private individuals.
Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who helped shape the right to privacy in the United States, before he became a justice, wrote that the right should not prohibit publication on matters of public interest. He gave the example of a person running for public office.
But the line is often not clear. And the goal should never be simply to embarrass or demean someone. Brandeis also wrote that “no fixed formula can be used to prohibit obnoxious publications.”
MARC ROTENBERG
Washington, Jan. 8, 2012
The writer teaches information privacy law at Georgetown University.
To the Editor:
The reason this “invasive” debate has become inevitable is not that the “zone of privacy” has been shattered because of Rick Santorum’s public profile. And it is not because of some vague matter of “deep moral divisions.” Mr. Santorum is the one who feels that the private medical decisions made between women and their families and doctors are public property and must be regulated and scrutinized by the government.
The policies Mr. Santorum advocates would lead to the investigation and scrutiny of women’s medical decisions about their pregnancies. He seeks to criminalize abortion and to criminally charge doctors for performing them.
How much more invasive can one get? How much bigger does the government need to be to be a presence in the examination room of every pregnant woman in the country?
If Mr. Santorum seeks to police women’s reproductive lives, he must expect to be subject to the same irrational, intrusive, embarrassing and degrading inquisition he intends to force on the rest of America.
MARTHA PLIMPTON
Los Angeles, Jan. 8, 2012
The writer is the actress.
To the Editor:
After Rick Santorum’s showing in the Iowa caucuses, new attention has been paid to the former senator’s 2005 book, “It Takes a Family” (“It Takes a Santorum,” by Gail Collins, column, Jan. 7).
Mr. Santorum’s book is meant to be a counterpoint to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book “It Takes a Village,” as if the matter is an either-or proposition. But as doctors know, when it comes to the goal of health, it takes an individual, a family, a village and indeed a society to find the best solutions available to us in the challenges we face together.
This is the life lesson we find written in both the Book of God and the Book of Nature.
GREGORY FRICCHIONE
Harvard, Mass., Jan. 7, 2012
The writer, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is the author of “Compassion and Healing in Medicine and Society.”
If Ms. Plimpton thinks that it is invasive to have laws constricting abortion, I wonder what she thinks about laws that don't allow me to purchase the kind of lightbulbs I want, or the type of food I want to eat, or take drugs that I might like - and so on and so forth.
I also wonder if she is aware that Obamacare has dozens of pages mandating what must happen between a patient and their doctor.
Posted by: Peg | Wednesday, 11 January 2012 at 06:49 PM