Anti-choice candidate

Oct 8, 2022
Oct 8, 2022 Updated Apr 13, 2025
12

Editor,

Rod Linhares is running for San Mateo City Council and he is anti-choice. You won’t hear him say it out loud, but his work and his actions say it.

(12) comments

Lou Oct 8, 2022 7:26am

What does "choice" and abortion have to do with City Counsel position?

HFAB Oct 8, 2022 7:54am

It has to do with stepping stones to higher positions and more power to deny women's rights, of course.

Ray Fowler Oct 8, 2022 9:03am

Good morning, Elaine

Thanks for your LTE. I don't know Rod, but is he really "anti-choice" or is it possible he just makes different choices than you would make? If that's the case, would Rod's choices invalidate the DJ's endorsement of him for a seat on San Mateo's city council?

Dirk van Ulden Oct 8, 2022 10:10am

Perhaps it may have something to do with avoiding the shredding of thousands of unborn babies? Most pro-choice supporters seem to conveniently ignore what goes on during abortion procedures.

Westy Oct 8, 2022 6:38pm

Regardless of how you feel about abortion, it is hardly valid to refer to it as the shredding of unborn babies. It is not okay to force a person to gestate a fertilized egg until it becomes a baby. It is a zygote from when egg and sperm meet until it begins dividing, then an embryo for the first eight weeks, and a fetus from then until birth. It is a baby only after it is born.

Forcing someone to perform this act of gestation, which often can result in death of the "host," is horrific and dehumanizing.

"We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children." --Joycelyn Elders

Dirk van Ulden Oct 8, 2022 8:55pm

Err - Westy - you are an intellectual person but many of your cohort and perhaps you seem to support abortion right up to viability and birth. That means cutting a not-yet- born-baby into pieces that can be extracted and sold as tissue. That is what pro-lifers are talking about. It is murder! I think we treat dogs better than that. Most strict abortion laws allow for mitigating measures if the life of the mother is in danger or there are other extenuating circumstances that justify an abortion. Remember that you were a fetus once as well. And Joyceylin Elders is a an affront to humanity, no body should even think of her as a role model.

Westy Oct 9, 2022 10:11am

That is a whole lot of very untrue propaganda. Women who are well into their pregnancy do not generally choose abortion unless it is under very difficult circumstances. You haven't been in their shoes, why do you think you should make the decision for them? I encourage you to read some of the stories from women who had to make the decision to terminate a pregnancy that would result in a baby that could not survive. For one of many examples, the situations are many and varied, yet you would make the decision for all. A dear friend was in that situation. She chose to continue the pregnancy, and ushered her baby through many expensive surgeries (are you willing to pay for these?) until he died. I respected her decision; she also had the means to be a full-time caregiver, having a husband who made a lot of money and no other children or elderly parents to care for.

The mitigating measures for life of mother that you refer to are 1) ambiguous, so that doctors sometimes feel they must wait until a woman is actively dying in order to proceed 2) do not fit the situation of having to continue a pregnancy with a fetal abnormality that will not result in a baby that cannot live, or for oh so many other situations.

Another thing that points to the anti-choice movement's hypocrisy and callous disregard for people is that the majority of its proponents seem to be actively against taxes and government support for the pregnant people who need medical care and the hospitals and social services that keep children safe, healthy and fed.

And no, I was not once a fetus. The soul does not enter the body until birth. I was not a person until I was born. My mother had to put a lot of work into growing that fetus into a person. She did it willingly, I do not believe she should have been forced to do it.

Ray Fowler Oct 9, 2022 8:50am

Westy

Regardless of how you feel about abortion, it is hardly valid to refer to the growing human being inside a mother's womb as something other than a unborn child for the entire term of the pregnancy. You choose words like zygote and embryo and that's OK, but later in a pregnancy to say the human being growing inside a mother's womb is only a baby "after it is born" is IMO just a convenient way for abortion advocates to deny that an unborn child is... a child.

An excerpt from the Cleveland Clinic, one of the best hospitals in the US, re: a fetus' development during weeks 13-16 of a pregnancy, "The fetal heartbeat may now be audible... fingers and toes are well-defined. Eyelids, eyebrows, eyelashes, nails and hair are formed. Teeth and bones become denser. The fetus can even suck his or her thumb, yawn, stretch and make faces. The nervous system is starting to function. The reproductive organs and genitalia are now fully developed..." Westy, maybe all those things happening during this stage of a pregnancy is why there is a "love affair with the fetus."

willallen Oct 8, 2022 12:28pm

"Choice" on what issue? He might be for "choice" on education or gun rights. Seems to me the letter writer is Cathophobic more than for "choice."

guest330 Oct 8, 2022 3:51pm

I think most responders have it right. What does "choice" have to do with quaifications to represent District 5 on the San Mateo City Council? As for the effects on higher political ambitions, I think voters wil be smart enough to evaluate those if and when any candidate runs for some "higher office". But what I find most interesting is that, based on an internet search (which I knw is not always accurate), Dr Salinger is a long itme resident of the San Mateo Highlands. NOT within the City of San Mateo. So she is not only raising a spurious concern, but she is not even eligible to vote in this election.

How about some transparency on the part of letter writers?

Westy Oct 8, 2022 6:10pm

Good information to have! Electing those who would deny women the right to health care is to provide them with their next stepping stone. Not to mention that issues can and do come up at the local level, such as doctors and clinics being threatened. The country is on a slippery slope. Pharmacists in some states are now refusing to fill certain prescriptions based on gender in case a woman or girl might use it to induce an abortion. For a man, they would fill that same prescription with no questions, but females must be monitored and policed.

craigwiesner Oct 9, 2022 7:06am

San Mateo Climate Action and Move San Mateo are hosting a candidate forum on Monday from 7-8:15pm! The link to register is here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqcu6vpzgvHN22zr1li9Shw5mYe4Ntepd0?blm_aid=245287054

The San Mateo United Homeowners Association is hosting a virtual candidate forum on October 13th Date/Time: Thursday, Oct. 13, 7pm-9pm.

https://www.facebook.com/SanMateoUnited/

These are just two of many opportunities to hear directly from the candidates.

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