Say no to Prop. 411
A vote for Proposition 411 will be a vote to extend what was supposed to be a temporary five-year sales tax for 10 more years on all the goods we buy. Due to the high inflation we are experiencing, the dropping of this sales tax would benefit us all just like the proposal to drop the gasoline sales tax. Also, if it is all about money for the city then why wasn’t this proposition placed on our regular November election ballot instead of having a high-cost special election in May?
Richard Basye
Midtown
Supreme Court v. women
“Equal Justice Under Law” is engraved over the entrance to the Supreme Court building. That is a lie.
It looks like five Catholic justices are poised to remove a 49-year-old right from women. This is religious bigotry disguised as constitutional persiflage.
People are also reading…
Women comprise 51% of the population; their right to bodily autonomy may be stolen if Roe is indeed overturned completely. Then legislators (who are still mostly white men) will dictate what degree of reproductive freedom women may have.
I remember the fearful anxiety surrounding unwanted pregnancies and how to get an abortion. It was a psychological and financial dilemma with a guarantee of nothing except perhaps prosecution.
Safe and antiseptic procedures now performed by medical professionals will not prevail. Back-alley butchery and coat hangers will be the norm for many. It is time for the 60% to 80% of Americans who support some degree of choice to vote for candidates who support the freedom and liberty of women to control their own bodies.
Katharine Donahue
Foothills
A life sentence
Recently I have heard many impassioned pleas to ban abortion, to stop the murders of tiny babies and protect their right to life. That is actually condemning many of these tiny babies and their mothers to a life sentence of poverty and misery. Those same people who want to allow the birth of an unwanted baby do not seem concerned about that child’s life after birth. Isn’t a child entitled to quality of life? To be wanted? To be more than a political football? The decision to bear a child should be up to the mother and her soul, not strangers who are strangled by moral righteousness and indignation and sometimes political ambition or religious fervor. I suggest these self-proclaimed morally superior people who want to dictate what a woman can do with her body give consideration to the lives of baby and mother after birth. Or just mind their own business.
Stella Miles
Southwest side
Death on Tucson’s roadways
Yesterday, on the 7500 block of East Speedway, I came to a halt as a red light flashed to allow a Tucson Fire Department engine onto the roadway. Four cars behind me in other lanes ran the light, one nearly colliding with the fire vehicle. We have an epidemic of a different kind in Tucson, one that involves the brazen disregard of our traffic laws and our welfare. Traffic accidents cause the serious injury and death of innocent people. Accidents are time consuming to investigate, create additional hazards and distractions for approaching drivers, including significant costs associated with medical treatment, missing work and insurance rates. Tucson Police Department Chief Chad Kasmar’s priority to try and reduce accidents is a good one because study after study has shown that aggressive enforcement of violations involving speeding, unsafe lane changes, following too closely and distracted driving on our main thoroughfares will reduce injury and fatal accidents. Tucson’s bad drivers are not going to stop until we start enforcing the law.
Richard Harper
Northeast side
Constitutional rights
Can the same folks who say “there is no explicit right to abortion in the constitution” also agree there is no explicit right to an assault rifle in the constitution? If you’re going to take that stance, can you make it consistent?
Let’s look at some other things that are not in the constitution:
1. Banning books.
2. Banning abortion.
3. Marriage. Of any kind. Yep. None of us are legal in this literalist view.
4. Corporations are people.
Let’s look at some things that are actually in the Constitution, but conveniently ignored:
1. The separation of church and state.
2. Voting rights.
3. Equal protection under the law.
And for fun, let’s reach back to the Declaration of Independence, our founding document:
4. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Jennifer Jones
Downtown
Water decisions for Pima County
Re: the May 8 article “No solid plans for Powell, Mead.”
My compliments to Tony Davis and the Arizona Daily Star for keeping the issue of our water shortage in the eyes of readers. I live on the northwest side. Within a half-mile of my home there are two huge new developments; one new homes and one apartments. Where does Metro Water think the water will come from for all these new residents? How can Pima County still allow these developments? And then on Sunday we find out about blackout threats during the summer. With more and more residents, there will be more of a demand for electricity in these new homes. And a bigger possibility of blackouts. Let’s see the reality of the situation and stop permitting so many new housing developments.
Judy Moll
Northwest side
Fitz column hits the mark
Re: the May 7 article “The abortion ban coming to Arizona will grow tyranny.”
I applaud Fitz’s brave and thoughtful stand on the question of choice in Arizona and what it means for our country. Our secular republic is indeed threatened as never before by those who would mix religion and government. As one of the co-authors of the Constitution, James Madison, wrote: “Religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.” And when they do mix, it is always a deadly combination, as history has shown. The belief that human life begins at conception and is thus deserving of full personhood status is fundamentally a religious belief, one that cannot be proved. Many of us do not share this belief. Fitz has it exactly right. To impose your personal religious views on others is tyranny.
Gene Twaronite
Downtown
Roads improving
I have heard much lately about the state of the roads in Tucson and Pima County. As a driver and cyclist I have noticed a huge improvement of many of the roads in the last year. Particularly, I have seen not just repairs, but resurfacing of Evans Mountain, Coronado, Via Estrada and East Quiver Drive. Additionally, just today I saw work starting on North Alvernon Way. What a pleasure it is to drive and cycle on these roads now.
I thank the road crews and officials responsible for these improvements. I look forward to seeing more improvements with the passage of Proposition 411.
Howard Strause
Foothills
What Roe v. Wade can mean
Roe v. Wade is about much more than abortion. The basis for that decision was that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to privacy and, more specifically, protects the privacy between a doctor and a patient. The Supreme Court’s draft opinion would take away that right from everyone — leaving all our personal decisions about our health to the whims of future legislatures rather than our doctors. That can include legal prohibitions on contraceptives, those used by females and by males. A future fundamentalist religious majority can outlaw vasectomies and condoms as well as IUDs or a different legislature could compel sterilization after one child. It could require that your loved one be kept artificially “alive” long after there is no brain activity and long after the individual wanted to be released from earthly pain or conversely, order that treatment be immediately terminated. Don’t think for a minute that this is only a woman’s issue — it’s everyone’s right to privacy.
Michael McCrory
Midtown
