Letters in the Editor's Mailbag.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Let women make decisions

Congress has passed legislation that will prevent women from deciding their own safest medical treatments. The Supreme Court has already ruled in Stenberg vs. Carhart that women, in consultation with their families and doctors - not politicians - should make decisions about the best ways to protect their health and lives.

The so-called Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which contains no exception for cases in which a woman's health is at risk, is unconstitutional and should therefore be struck down.

Politicians should not make serious medical decisions on behalf of women.

ANDREA KIRSH

Eugene

Stop the bike bashing

I am sick and tired of the most popular unrestrained prejudice enjoyed by local motorists and newspaper editors - biker-bashing.

As a bike rider, while well in the bike lane, I have been brushed by trucks and vans. I have had cars purposely miss me by inches. I have had drivers swerve in front of me. I have been pelted with containers. Why do they do this? Who knows? Perhaps, in a flash of stereotypic non-thinking and a fit of vigilante justice, they are trying to punish me for being one those idiotic cyclists who ride the wrong way on streets and burst through intersections against red lights.

Those cyclists make me mad, too. However, they make me no more mad than motorists who risk lives as they race through red lights, run stop signs and weave and swerve through traffic in order to knock a few seconds off the drive to the grocery.

However, those who thump their chests and demand that cyclists obey the same laws as motorists at stop signs really get me riled up. The vast majority of these complainers are self-righteous hypocrites. Go to any intersection where there is a stop sign, and count the number of drivers who actually stop. (By stop, I mean the wheels completely stop rotating.) Very few do!

Do yourself a favor the next time you motor up to a stop sign. Actually stop. If you drive like about 80 percent of all motorists, it will be a new and strange sensation. And it might also stop you from being such a hypocrite about cyclists not coming to complete stops.

GEORGE JEFFCOTT

Eugene

Casino heightens accident risk

My wife and I were traveling to Eugene on Highway 126 on Memorial Day afternoon. Suddenly we were stopped by a steady line of eastbound cars parked on the highway. No traffic was coming westbound, and it was obvious that an accident had occurred stopping traffic flow in both directions. After waiting for half an hour and finally seeing the emergency vehicles arrive, we elected to follow a large group of knowledgeable people turning back to Mapleton and taking the long, winding Highway 36 to hook up to with Highway 126 in Noti. The west portion of Highway 126 was closed for approximately 3 1/2 hours, and a subsequent accident on Highway 36 halted traffic there for an indeterminate period of time.

During the waiting and the time taken by the detour, we could only think of how many more times this type of disastrous traffic accident might occur if we allow a casino to be built at the terminus of Highway 126 in Florence. Eugene and Springfield residents, drawn by a heavy marketing campaign, would flood our one main route. Perhaps fueled by free or cheap casino drinks, the risks of another fatal and time devastating highway closure would be compounded.

We hope that this single Memorial Day incident will encourage all the local, county and state officials to galvanize their efforts to stop the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians from building their planned Florence casino.

GEORGE MILLIKEN

BARBARA MILLIKEN

Florence

Correction

A guest viewpoint published Friday stated that the Harlow Neighbors had voted to oppose naming Eugene's portion of Centennial Boulevard in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Neither the neighborhood group nor its executive committee has voted on that issue.

LETTERS LOG

Letters received in past week: 149

Letters published: 65

What's on readers' minds: A wide range of topics were on readers' minds this week, with no single issue dominating Mailbag flow. We received eight letters on the proposed renaming of Centennial Boulevard to honor Martin Luther King Jr., and seven on President Bush's tax cut plan, which he signed into law last week. Other hot topics included a proposal in the Oregon Legislature to allow bicyclists to yield rather than stop at posted intersections, self-serve gas, the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in Iraq, allegations regarding the rescue of U.S. Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch during the war in Iraq, the Public Employees Retirement System, a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban flag burning and the U.S. House of Representatives' approval of legislation outlawing so-called "partial birth abortion."