To the Journal editor:

In response to a recent letter to the editor (March 12). Reading the letter made me stop and think “do any of us really know how close we are to being falsely accused of sexual abuse?”

Are any of you a mom, a dad, a teacher, a grandparent, a step-parent, a brother, a sister, a niece, a nephew, an uncle, an aunt, a neighbor? Have any of you ever babysat someone’s child? Have you befriended the children down the street? In the neighborhood? Take the grandkids for weekends? On trips? The list could go on and on. A pretty typical day in your life, right? But what if … you suddenly were falsely accused of sexual abuse, perhaps by someone you once babysat, a neighbor you were friendly to, your own child or grandchild or relative and you knew you were innocent?

I’m not by any means minimizing the seriousness of sexual abuse, it is real! But have you ever thought, what if you were accused of something you did not do? That is also real and it could happen to you.

Remember what happened in the 1980s in Kern County, California? The innocent moms and dads falsely accused of sexual abuse, some imprisoned for years. For more information on that case, watch “Witch Hunt,” a documentary on YouTube narrated by Sean Penn.

If it happened in Kern County, California, where else did it happen? Could it have happened over the years in our local communities? Could an innocent person have been sent to prison or worse, committed suicide as a result of all these “junk sciences?”

Maybe we all are only one accusation away from our lives being completely destroyed.

Food for thought.

DONNA RUOHONEN

Hancock