Letter To The Editor: When Does An Advanced Degree Matter?

By KHAL SPENCER
Los Alamos

Ms. Wendy M. Hoffman wrote a letter complaining that Mr. Dustin Johnson did not refer to Ms. Jacqueline Krohn, M.D., MPH, using her medical redentials. We are told that the omission is not only disrespectful, but fails to acknowledge Krohn’s knowledge base when discussing Planned Parenthood.

I disagree. Krohn’s July 31 letter was not a thoughtful discussion of medical issues regarding abortion or contraception, or an indication of why the demographics of PP’s locations are allegedly part of a dark conspiracy, or for that matter an honest discussion of public health. 

Her July 25 letter was a heavily slanted referral to Planned Parenthood’s practice of providing, sans profit motive, fetal organs and body parts to medical researchers. Instead her essays are an attempt to tar Planned Parenthood by associating it with early twentieth century eugenics, an idea that was as common in the U.S. of the early 20th Century as it was with the Nazis, and the Nazis themselves. Kind of a Letter to the Editor version of Godwin’s Law.

If Krohn wants to offer a more thoughtful, modern public health perspective on the topic of Planned Parenthood without invoking conspiracy theories or 80 year old, since discredited ideas, I am
sure the community is all ears and I am sure her medical credentials would be brought into play.

Meanwhile, no one’s advanced degrees, and there are plenty of them in this town, are, when used politically or in a field divorced from one’s specialty, an indication that the owner’s ideas are any better formulated than anyone else’s. Regardless of the alphabet soup following their name. Especially on a politically charged topic like abortion.

The proof is in the essay, not the credentials. Which is why I don’t list mine here.

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