Hey San Clemente, are you listening?
Re “Kansas voters showed how to keep abortion rights safe,” editorial, and “O.C. city to weigh abortion measure,” Aug. 3
Voters in Kansas who upheld their state constitutional right to an abortion have a message for San Clemente City Councilman Steve Knoblock and his “sanctuary for life” resolution: The majority of voters are not interested in politicians moonlighting as untrained doctors or as theologians.
Soon, Californians will vote on reproductive issues, and I predict a similar outcome. Good public policy is factbased. Knoblock’s resolution is fact-free, containing only his personal beliefs.
Sadly, it is not free of disrespect for the diverse religious views among his constituents. Nor is it free of disrespect for rape and miscarriage survivors when he proposed a city ban on the healthcare they need. His resolution is a morality play cloaked as city business.
Knoblock should acknowledge that his resolution is not fact-based policy and is far outside the core issues he was elected to address. Kansas voters understood the importance of such distinctions. I trust that California voters do too. Kerry Dunn, San Clemente
My mother grew up in China’s Cultural Revolution. She witnessed her parents being whipped in public during denunciation rallies when she was little.
My mom fought hard to flee trauma and totalitarianism. When she escaped her abusive husband and moved to Beijing, where she got her abortion, she was pursuing a life of liberty and security, which she envisioned for herself and her children.
Yet as the Chinese Communist Party tightened control, her fears reemerged and she sent her children to the United States.
When Roe vs. Wade was overturned, I felt intense frustration as a young, first-generation immigrant. Right now, 14 states have completely banned abortion or have passed bans after six weeks of pregnancy. This country is going backward, invading a woman’s autonomy over her own body.
Where would my mom be today if she didn’t get the abortion and a second chance? Will I have agency over my body in this supposedly free country?
Kansas’ mobilization of the youth vote to defeat an antiabortion constitutional amendment brought me hope. So please, cast your vote for initiatives and candidates supporting reproductive freedom. Please organize and vote for our rights, especially for the vulnerable immigrant women lacking essential healthcare in this country. Shuci Zhang
Culver City
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) may be the most consequential politician of the 21st century. His project is to convert American government and politics into a system of minority rule.
McConnell has made strides in this direction, to the point that the urgent question becomes how we can correct course and get back on the original model of balance that the founders intended?
Kansas’ expression of the majority view on abortion is an important sign this corrective process has begun.
Glenn Pascall Dana Point
Why are roads built this way?
Re “5 killed in fiery multicar crash,” Aug. 5
On Thursday, in unincorporated L.A. County, a driver was able to speed at an estimated 100 mph and kill at least six people. This particular incident is incredible in scope of disaster and lives lost, but it’s not something that happened in a vacuum. Every day in Los Angeles, especially in South L.A., there are car crashes, speeding and street takeovers.
There are solutions to these problems, and no, it is not enforcement. Street design can save lives. By designing our streets for speed, putting seven-lane highways in our communities and calling them avenues, we are asking people to drive recklessly and kill.
We can design better streets, take away traffic lanes and add dedicated bike and bus lanes. Add bollards. Add trees and curb bulbs. We can turn on speed governors in our cars.
I’m sick of seeing people die on the altar of the car. Car dependency kills us quickly in crashes, and slowly by poisoning our environment. It does not have to be like this. Heather Johnson
Los Angeles
We were stuck in traffic heading home from the beach Thursday because a Mercedes-Benz careened at high speed through the intersection of Slauson and La Brea avenues, where it collided with other cars. Among the dead was an infant reportedly ejected into the street.
The Mercedes-Benz that killed all those people wasn’t just a MercedesBenz. There was a person
driving it who, for whatever reason, decided not to stop at the light and put all those lives at risk.
I’ve seen that scene before in Los Angeles. I’ve seen countless police officers watch people fly through red lights and stop signs without even blinking, let alone chasing them down to write a ticket.
What I can’t stop thinking about is how often we drive through that intersection. It’s just pure chance that those people were at the intersection when the Mercedes-Benz killed them all. Driving in Los Angeles, it is pure chance that any of us survives a drive to the grocery store or work.
Why was that car designed in a way that it could cause so much destruction and death? Why are our streets designed for people to drive fast enough to slaughter whole groups in an instant? How do we allow the city to create that hell for us?
Society’s obsession with the automobile and petroleum built this city. Traffic flow is our obsession. What if we became obsessed with walkability, transit, safe streets, clean air and people surviving their communities?
Kort Havens Los Angeles
Giving false hope to Taiwan
Re “What China wants from Taiwan,” Opinion, Aug. 3
The problem with megaphone diplomacy is that it may end up cornering the parties into a nonnegotiable position where being seen as weak is not an option. That’s precisely what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) did with her Taiwan visit.
I realize that this might well be the last chance that Pelosi could take her stance on Taiwan as the speaker of the House, but she could just as well have visited Taiwan without blabbing it out to the world.
Our worst fear is to give false hope to Taiwan, which has an rather ill-equipped military to defend itself. Knowing how America has behaved in Vietnam, Afghanistan and most recently Ukraine, Taiwan would be wise to keep its head down.
John T. Chiu Newport Beach
Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan signaled unambiguous U.S. support for that country.
It is important that the U.S. does not allow China to dictate our foreign policy, just as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization accepted Sweden and Finland despite threats from Russia. Our clarity in supporting Taiwan could deter China’s ambitions in Southeast Asia.
Ann Lau Torrance