Letters to the Editor

Abortion is still a debatable issue

Rashmi Joshi’s contention that abortion is a topic that has been definitively decided is, in my opinion, shortsighted.

She states in her column (“Politicians babble while real issues burn,” Viewpoint, June 7) that presidential candidates who debate the still controversial topic of abortion forget “that we decided on the matter in Roe v. Wade.” In truth, nine Supreme Court Justices decided that the question should be taken out of our hands.

A different decision in Roe v. Wade would not have resulted in abortion being illegal across the nation. Rather, it would give individual states and their citizens the freedom to decide for themselves if abortion should be legal in their state.

History dictates that a decision by the Supreme Court can never be assumed to be correct or final. In 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson established that segregation in public schools was legal as long as those schools were equal, hardly a final decision. It would be overturned in 1954 by Brown v. the Board of Education, which found that segregated schools were inherently unequal.

I ask Joshi to not assume, simply because a Supreme Court decision lines up with her personal views, that it is established and cannot be changed. Rather, allow an issue that remains incredibly important to many American citizens to be debated by those that could potentially lead this country alongside issues such as the war and the economy.

Kelly Regan

Second-year,

Economics/international area studies

Car-sharing offers a solution for grads

Alexa Vaughn’s article (“Transportation costs pose problem for grads,” News, June 10) was thorough, yet it completely overlooked one key service: car-sharing.

Car-sharing services, such as Flexcar, enable recent grads to live in big cities without owning their own car and still have access to new- or late-model, low-emission, fuel-efficient vehicles when they need them. When you belong to a car-sharing organization, your membership allows you to use these vehicles as needed, paying just a simple hourly rate that includes gas, insurance and maintenance.

Flexcar recently introduced a new rate plan: for $10, you have a car for three hours. It requires a six month commitment and is nonrefundable.

For example, Flexcar has multiple vehicles here in Los Angeles (including many here on campus and in Westwood available to UCLA students, staff and faculty), San Francisco, San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland.

Combined with good-to-great public transportation found in most of these cities mentioned, you can truly have your cake and eat it too, for a fraction of the cost of owning, fueling, maintaining, repairing, insuring and garaging your own vehicle.

Sounds like more smiles-per-gallon to me.

Charles Carter

UCLA Transportation Services

Smokers outside Powell mar campus

When I watch people sucking down the fumes from their cigarettes outside Powell Library, it’s like watching people punch themselves in the face.

To the extent that all humans are interconnected “brothers and sisters,” this bothers me.

One cannot help but notice the hordes of smokers who “gather outside” (euphemism for “obstruct”) the Powell Library vomitory. When entering or exiting the library, I often hold my breath. The library is one of the most beautiful buildings on campus, yet it is littered by these gargoyles inflicting harm on themselves.

The library is supposed to be a bastion of higher learning, yet it is littered with cigarette butts, the abomination that gargoyles leave behind post-fix.

If we can’t put an end to the smoking section that greets library patrons, let’s at least impose fines for the litter that they so frequently leave behind.

Matthew J. Tolnick

UCLA School of Law, Class of 2008

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