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Madelyn Wynne: Bike Safety: Road Lanes Are Not Enough
We the citizens have paid millions to have bike lanes installed throughout the city and county of Boulder. We constantly pay for their upkeep. Why does the city and county continue to direct cyclists to streets, roads and highways?
The diagonal route. Proposition 119 is an example. The bike path along 119 should parallel the freeway but be offset like the path along US 36. It should not be a freeway lane. Bike lanes provide a much safer environment for cyclists, and I guess that was the thought when and why they were built. If they don’t exist where cyclists need them, then more cycle lanes should be built and cyclists encouraged to use them rather than streets. Bicycle accidents certainly prove that the street and highway lanes are not safe for them.
Let’s also look at some safety features for vehicles in Boulder – we’re the people who pay for the streets and bike lanes.
Madelyn Wynne
Rock
KK DuVivier: Environment: We must fight the big oil goliaths
Bob Greenlee (“Reducing carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is neither easy nor inexpensive”) may not understand the benefit of the Boulder climate lawsuit, but it was only when similar cases challenged Big Tobacco we got a change. It’s time for the Davids to take on the Goliaths again through cases like Boulder’s to hold Big Oil accountable for its misinformation and to use some of its huge profits to pay for the climate catastrophe we all face.
KK DuVivier
Rock
David Levin: Roe v. Wade: ending capital punishment too
If we abolish abortion because of the sanctity of human life, then capital punishment should be abolished for the same reason.
David Levin
Springs of Eldorado
Joan Gabriele: Roe c. Wade: Help us not go back
According to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, “the Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by constitutional provision.” It could also be argued that the Second Amendment does not refer to assault weapons. But I digress.
The assertion in the Declaration of Independence “that all men are created equal” and endowed with “certain inalienable Rights, among which are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” has always been only partly true. White men of certain classes have been given the right to life, liberty, and happiness, and continue to be the primary beneficiaries of these privileges. But if we assume that ‘men’ means ‘humans’, then everyone in our country should have the same benefits. So why did Alito say that women’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not protected?
Because American politics does not serve its people and – with the exception of a select few – it never has. Instead, he increasingly caters to a fossilized minority of power-hungry right-wing conservatives who hypocritically come out “pro-life” while remaining fiercely silent on the death penalty. They deny universal health care, allow immigrant children to be taken from their parents, and ignore the rights of transgender youth. They support policies that disproportionately incarcerate men of color and champion military-grade weapons that kill school children. Pro-life indeed.
Those who are pro-choice understand that women cannot fulfill their potential without full reproductive freedom. We know this decision will affect low-income women and women of color unequally, further traumatize victims of rape and incest, and some women will die. But women’s potential – and women’s right to life, liberty and happiness – is hardly high on the Republican agenda.
Talk about that stacked yard. Vote in regional and national elections. Help us not to go back.
Jeanne-Gabriel
Rock
William K. Terry: Roe v. Wade: Freedom of religion is freedom of religion
In my opinion, there is no significant difference between a nine-month-old fetus about to be born and a day-old baby. But, in my opinion, a fertilized egg is just a cell. After some point between these extremes, I think banning abortion is justified (with exceptions for extenuating circumstances). This letter attempts to identify this point.
Those who believe that “life begins at conception” argue for a total ban on abortion and equal protection under the law, even for fertilized eggs. But consider an implication of this argument, by a scenario for which I unfortunately cannot claim originality. Suppose you are a doctor in a fertility clinic and you are treating a patient with reduced mobility. In this room is a refrigerator containing trays of fertilized eggs. A fire breaks out, and it’s up to you to save either the woman or the trays; you can’t do both. If you let a living woman burn alive to save a bunch of fertilized eggs, you are depraved. But hardly anyone would do that. Obviously, the life of the woman morally takes precedence over the eggs. Still.
Why is that? One obvious reason is that the woman may suffer, but not the eggs. Therefore, suffering is a salient distinction. I think abortion should always be legal until the nervous system of the fetus has developed enough to suffer. Where this point should be determined by medical professionals, not by scientifically ignorant politicians or religious fanatics on the Supreme Court.
Those whose belief that “life begins at conception” is based on their religion should let their beliefs control their own behavior, not that of others. Religious belief has no legitimate place in civil law. When religion controls society, violent repression ensues. Freedom of religion implies the absence of religion. Let freedom prevail.
William K. Terry
niwot
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