Mr Editor, remove the lumber from your eyes
Published:Wednesday | February 6, 2019 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
The Gleaner’s editorial of February 4, 2019 titled ‘Mr Thwaites and the abortion hearing’ is puzzling and troubling.
I am puzzled as to why The Gleaner is requiring the chairman of a parliamentary committee to declare his personal position on a policy issue at the start of the deliberations.
If I were a member of that committee, I could think the chairman was attempting to prejudice the proceedings. His personal views are immaterial just as how it doesn’t matter whether the editorial writer had an abortion.
The Gleaner editorial is implying that members of the parliamentary committee are intellectual weaklings who will be unduly influenced by Chairman Thwaites. What poppycock!
TAKING SIDES
More importantly, though, as a consumer of media output, I am troubled by The Gleaner taking sides in the public debate on such a crucial issue such as abortion rights. This is an issue, I believe, that the society would benefit from The Gleaner being an impartial arbiter and a forum for facts, analyses and differing viewpoints.
But alas, The Gleaner, from the dominant position it holds in the Jamaican media market and its place of trust in the Jamaican society, is attempting to unduly influence the outcome of the national debate on reforming the abortion laws. While doing so, the newspaper is attempting to handicap the chairman of the parliamentary committee, while holding up the hands of the mover of the motion Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn.
Mr Editor, remove the lumber from your eyes.
BYRON BUCKLEY