Tree City no longer
Having grown up and lived my entire life in Gainesville, it is sad to say that Gainesville has changed. Gainesville has frequently been recognized as the Tree City or by other pseudonyms, but I wonder how much longer that will last.
Over the past few years, I have seen countless trees cut down to make room for the expansion of Gainesville. There have been an exponential number of trees cut down to create apartment complexes. At the rate we are going the land around Gainesville will soon be filled with concrete and buildings, rather than the beautiful trees we were once known for.
Sure, expansion can be good, but is it worth the cost of our green spaces in Gainesville? I implore you to consider and understand the detrimental impact the expansion of Gainesville is having on our green spaces and on our name as the Tree City.
Kendall Breland, Gainesville
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of recent legislation enacted in Mississippi and Texas regarding the right to abortion. Decisions by the court may have the potential to adversely affect, or even overturn, precedent set in the past 48 years by the Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey decisions.
Opponents of abortion argue that abortion is not a right granted by the U.S. Constitution. That argument is a red herring. In reaching prior decisions the court affirmed the validity of an ethical need for protection of potential human life, but also recognized the guarantee of liberty provided by the 14th and 9th amendments. A long-recognized precedent dating back to the 19th century, liberty has been interpreted by the judiciary to include a right to privacy.
The right of a woman to choose abortion is consistently supported by a majority responding to national polling, but men generally outnumber women in state legislatures where laws regulating abortion originate. Consider if the Biblical commandment be fruitful and multiply were to be adopted as a mantra by religious conservatives to insist upon legislation regulating or forbidding vasectomy for men (or tubal ligation for women). What would be the reaction, the outcry, the resistance?
DavidPawliger,Newberry
It has been implied by many the current Supreme Court bench has a conservative majority which, also by implication, means its decisions must be guided by politics rather than legal jurisprudence. How did that work in 1971 through 1973 when the Roe v. Wade case was argued and decided?
The Burger court was aligned with conservatives" justices Burger, Rehnquist, Powell and Blackmun. One the "left" were justice Marshall, Brennan and Douglas. Sitting on the political fence, but leaning "right," were "centrist" justices White and Stewart.
The vote in 1973 was 7-2 making the Roe v. Wade decision a legal precedent pushed through by a "liberal" court because only a liberal court could have done so. How could that happen with a conservative majority?
Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress during the periods 1971-1981, 1987-1995 and 2007-2011. That's a long time since Roe v. Wade, about a quarter of a century.
How can Roe v. Wade be revisited by the Supreme Court after all the imaginary "abortion rights" legislation passed by the aforementioned Democratic congresses? If an abortion rights statute is what the people want because the polls say so then why hasn't the "people's party" delivered the goods rather than defer to what they deem a politicized court?
Max Skeans, Hawthorne
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Readers comment on the loss of trees in Gainesville and abortion - Gainesville Sun
