Regarding Carol Han’s letter and her opening statement about assuming life begins at conception, I have some thoughts (“Pro-life means opposing U.S. warmaking abroad,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 2).

I remember my logic professor and neighbor, Irving C. Copi, telling the class: “You can assume whatever you like, but if your assumption is false, then your conclusion will probably be false as well.”

We can now clone stem cells from our skin cells. Does this mean we should criminalize scratching ourselves because we would be destroying so-called innocent human life?

Like many people, I am annoyed with the recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court concerning abortion. I think 80% of women would want legal abortions if they became pregnant as a result of rape or incest.

I think each state should put the abortion issue on the ballot in the near future, as a means of legally voicing your opinion to the people in our nation’s Capitol.

Phil Robertson

Kailua

We need electricity and water to sustain life

Fred Gustavson was right (“Closing of coal plant feckless, premature,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Aug. 31).

What about the life-sustaining electricity needed after a major hurricane disaster? Most solar panels will end up in the Pacific Ocean or your neighbor’s kitchen.

What we need is for those responsible for ensuring our safety to sign a blood agreement that there will never be a circumstance in which we will not have electricity to pump water from our wells and maintain water system pressure.

A person needs about 10 gallons of water a week to live. That person can only go about three days before it is over. So how much water will be needed for about a million Oahu residents and maybe another million tourists?

Does anyone else think it is weird that no one is talking about making Red Hill an underground reservoir? For sustaining life, are survivable fossil fuels or even nuclear generators unthinkable?

Toby Rushforth

Kaneohe

Thiessen wrong about student loan forgiveness

Marc Thiessen and another anti- American column (“Biden’s loan forgiveness is an act of stolen valor,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 2).

As a mother of four college-educated children who paid off their student loans, I applaud President Joe Biden’s decision to forgive some loans. It has nothing to do with veterans.

My husband used the GI Bill to go to law school. We were grateful. My husband served. Did Thiessen?

Patricia Blair

Kailua

Energy independence lost as coal plant closes

Sept. 1, 2022, will go down in the history of Hawaii as the day we lost our energy independence. That is the day that the AES coal plant that provided 15% of Oahu’s firm electrical power was shut down (“Aloha to the coal plant, but were we ready for the transition?,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Aug. 25).

While Hawaiian Electric has announced that the increase in electric bills from the shutdown of the coal plant will be 4% for a typical customer, that will end up as $1,000 a year or even more when considering the increased costs for businesses that must pass this new cost on to their customers.

Add this to some of the highest gas prices in the country, increased rents, higher property tax bills, taxes for rail and more and the impact on the average islander will require many to make a choice among groceries, clothes for their kids, and many other lifestyle changes.

We all should mark our calendars on Sept. 1, 2022, as Day 1 of a new change in all our lives.

Earl F. Arakaki

Ewa Beach

Thanks for coverage of Hawaii’s Little Leaguers

Thank you for all the coverage of the Little League World Series through the media. It was a pleasure watching the games on TV.

Congratulations to all the players. They played for fun, not for money. They kept the games moving, unlike major league pitchers taking 30-plus seconds between pitches.

Best of all Hawaii’s team won it all because of its tremendous offense. The players swung at everything in the strike zone, made contact, played fundamental baseball, didn’t slide hands-first for safety reasons, and had fewer errors. They were the most well-coached team.

Bruce Kouch

Manoa

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