Thanks to Lisa Sink's reporting in the Dec. 17 Journal Sentinel,
a Waukesha woman got to wake up that morning to see an
above-the-fold, front-page story announcing her pregnancy.
The hook was that she is drug-addicted. That her addiction
threatens her health and that of her child is bad enough, but
it's nobody's business but hers.

The current political mood is that these "cocaine moms" need
mandated addiction counseling. As outraged as our morally
puffed-out politicians are over this issue, I sense no similar
outrage from them over the idea of barging into a woman's uterus
without knocking.

The idea of reproductive choice is that a woman actually has one,
even if a majority around her may not agree with it. In fact, it
is at that exact point that the essence of personal freedom is
fully realized.

Before hanging up on a reporter, the woman's mother asked that
her daughter be left alone. The newspaper should have done just
that, rather than pillory her on the front page.

In a recent editorial, the Journal Sentinel spoke out against the
"cocaine mom" bill, which makes Sink's strategically placed
infomercial all the more confusing.

John Ptacek
Whitefish Bay