Regarding Ellen Goodman's Nov. 13 column ("Caving In on Abortion") and David M. Shribman's Nov. 15 column ("Abortion Makes a Comeback"):

I cannot understand all this discourse regarding the proposed health-care plan paying for abortions. Why would the government even consider paying for abortions? Unless medically necessary, abortions are elective surgery. The individual decides, even in good health, that she wants an abortion. Plastic surgery is also considered elective surgery.

Therefore, if and when our new health-care program is implemented, and a healthy woman elects to have an abortion and the government pays for it, I would like to elect to have cosmetic plastic surgery. I too have something to discard -- wrinkles!

Certainly erasing wrinkles cannot be equated with choosing to erase a life; however, elective surgery is elective surgery. Sounds fair to me.

LOIS HELD
Whitehall

What I don't want

A lot has been written about whether the health-care reform bill should limit a woman's right to safely and legally terminate her pregnancy. I have not noticed similar rancorous comments about the absence of limitations on the federal funding of infertility treatments for men and women whose only medical ailment is that they cannot conceive.

With the U.S. population at more than 307 million and climbing and more than 626,000 children in foster care or available for adoption, I do not want my tax dollars funding infertility treatments.

I did not and will not lobby my representatives to reject the desperately needed health-care reform bill unless it clearly states that it will not pay for these services. I would appreciate the same consideration from the anti-choice voters.

KEVIN STILES
Oakland

Abortion slaughter

In the early 1970s a bill was introduced in the state House to legalize abortion on demand. It never passed, but a local newspaper (now defunct) wrote an editorial stating that any abortion bill should be fair to women but not lead to the wholesale slaughter of innocents.

A woman wrote the best letter to the editor that I ever read. She said: "Regarding your editorial, are you saying the slaughter of innocents is OK, so long as it's not done on a wholesale basis?"

This made me think that, as has been said, if you control the language you control the issue. The radical left has been very good at this -- substituting language that allows them to avoid the real issue. The "right to choose" comes to mind: the right to choose what?

Since we have allowed more than 50 million abortions since Roe v. Wade, maybe abortion in America should be called what it really is, "the wholesale slaughter of innocents."

HARVEY BOWER
Mt. Lebanon

Holder's doing

I can usually overlook the absurd, biased rantings in the letters to the editor and dismiss them as being the product of the politically uninformed who rely on the far-left elite media for their "facts."

However, Jay Lynch's offering, "Botched by Bush" (Nov. 19), is too inane to ignore. The proposed civilian trial for 9/11 terrorists (yet another "blame Bush" accusation) never would have happened and never should have happened under President Bush's watch.

This is yet the latest blunder by the current inept administration, spearheaded by the agenda-driven Attorney General Eric Holder. Yes, if this civilian trial (instead of the appropriate military tribunal) does take place, it will be a circus and a great security risk -- not to mention providing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a platform to spew his jihadist rhetoric.

Thank Mr. Holder -- not Mr. Bush -- when it happens, for it is Mr. Holder's brainchild. Of course, our national security has apparently, and sadly, gone by the proverbial wayside.

BARBARA Z. BAKER
West Deer

Assessment mess

So Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr., who has had his panties in a bunch for quite some time, has now decided to tell the county how to run its business concerning reassessments ("County Real Estate Review Ordered," Nov. 11). How legal is that?

Color me confused, but all of those county residents who complained their property values were higher than their neighbors' because they paid too much should have a) not bought the house in the first place if they felt they were paying too much, or b) filed an appeal with the property assessment board.

The "poor people" whom the judge thinks he's helping have always had that remedy. The system works the way it is. Maybe if the judge put his pay raise into advertising the fact that everyone can appeal their current valuation with our current system, he could sleep at night knowing that fairness was in place all along.

TOM TOMKINS
Bethel Park

Roadway sharing

As the winter approaches, inevitably the 2009 bike commuting season is drawing to a close. It's time then to express my gratitude for everyone who made it possible.

Thank you to all the drivers in the North Hills for another safe year. Thank you for your careful passing. Thank you for leaving enough room. I know there are some tight spots that are a little tough, yet we managed to share the road just fine.

Great job! Thanks! And if you see me struggling up some hill on the way home, the occasional "Go Scott" is certainly appreciated.

SCOTT RECKLESS
McCandless

Memorial excess

There are few who would dispute that the 40 heroic passengers and crew of Flight 93 deserve a memorial, like the others who died at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11.

That said, isn't it excessive to think the government needs 2,000 acres and $60 million for a simple monument commemorating these heroes? Worse, landowners, via congressional legislation, were forced to sell their property to establish the park. It doesn't seem fair, for one, to the landowners, and what about fiscal responsibility in the midst of a borderline depression?

It certainly seems extreme when compared with the simple beauty of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, built on less than an acre.

ROBERT GRAHAM
Squirrel Hill

I enjoyed a week-long visit to charming Pittsburgh and was delighted to pick up your Post-Gazette to find that journalism is not dead after all! My travels take me to quite a few cities where I get a chance to read the area newspaper. It has been very disappointing to find that as the years progress the quality of journalism has declined. I thought we were pretty much at the post-mortem stage.

Even in the Baltimore-Washington area, where I come from, great papers have slid into the abyss of info-tainment. Poorly written, biased, a pop-culture writing style that is little more than a reflection of momentary prevailing opinion -- that is not journalism.

Kudos to your paper!

There is one serious objection I feel worth mentioning: It is the use of "journalistic-looking advertising," as on Page A-7 on Nov. 18.

I have a medical background, so I can readily see through the inflated headlines, and "that which looks like news" is not news at all. Disconcertingly, I had to search all over the page for the tiny, tiny writing that said "advertisement."

This pseudo-news marketing is a disservice to both your paper's professionalism and to the readers' trust. More and more people are having trouble discerning the truth from marketing, especially in areas of health. I hope you will not blur those lines.

Again, but for the small yet important exception noted, I want to commend you. I enjoy your paper immensely. The writing is refreshingly intelligent and professionally journalistic. Perhaps other formerly great papers will swing back to the days when newspapers journalistically report the news.

MAUREEN McIVER
Crofton, Md.

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