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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
shM
Monday, Nov. 4, 1985
Moral blackmail
In the latest round in its crusade to end abortion, the White House has aimed straight for the pocketbook.
The Reagan administration last week gave its support to a congressional amendment that would halt federal funds for any group giving pregnant women advice about abortion.
But authority for the federal family planning program runs out on Nov. 15. Anti-abortion groups are urging Congress to end or severely cut the program.
Under current rules, family planning clinics that receive federal aid must offer abortion counseling and referral services to pregnant women who ask about their options.
The White House wants to go a step further and grant federal money only to groups that refuse to advise clients about abortion, except in cases where the mother's life is threatened.
This move smacks of moral blackmail.
Planned Parenthood and 4,000 health clinics last year received $142.5 million from the federal family planning program. Without government financing, they won't be able to provide any family planning services.
Those services don't merely include abortion. These clinics give advice on contraception, adoption and medical and stress disorders related to pregnancy.
Supporters of the amendment say they want to put a "wall of separation" between family planning and abortion. They contend that many agencies, ones closer to the Reagan administration's moral stance, would be glad to offer family planning services if they weren't required to advise clients on the option of abortion.
The current rules unfairly restrict those family planning agencies that refuse to offer abortion counseling.
Glass art
But the proposed amendment would just as unfairly restrict agencies, such as Planned Parenthood, that argue it is impossible to operate a medically ethical program without telling pregnant women about their full range of options, including abortion.
The Philip Glass Ensemble was certainly not the usual Concert Series fare.
Women who want abortions cannot pay for them with federal money. But pregnant women who want to know all their medical options and who often cannot afford to consult a private physician should not be forced to choose in ignorance.
Glass' music at the Oct. 23 concert appealed more to those who are accustomed to the driving rhythms of rock music than to those who prefer the stately melodies of Mozart.
The University is the ideal place to offer the music of the future to the music audiences of the future. The Series, and its companion, the Chamber Music Series, are flexible enough to accommodate the lovers of Mozart as well as the fans of Glass.
Jackie Davis, director of the Concert Series, deserves a round of applause for risking possible disharmony by bringing Glass to campus. The decision was a clear sign that the Series could respond to the wishes of students and not just to the musical tastes of the traditional supporters of the arts.
Students requested that Glass appear and they attended in greater numbers than usual for a Concert Series performance.
But he's wrong to lay the blame only at the door of the Soviet Union.
Cooling the hot spots
Reagan is right about the danger of regional conflicts. The daily violence in some parts of the world threatens to draw the superpowers into their vortex.
President Reagan managed to sidetep arms control in his deft speech before the United Nations on Oct. 24.
Instead of trading repeated volleys over Star Wars or arms reductions, Reagan chose to aim at Soviet meddling in some of the world's hotspots.
Arms control is not enough, Reagan said, if the Soviets won't halt their use of force and subversion around the globe.
He pointed to Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Angola as examples of the regional conflicts that endanger U.S.-Soviet relations.
misdeeds. Moscow and its proxy, Vietnam, have resorted to direct military intervention to expand Soviet influence in Afghanistan and Cambodia.
But Reagan ignores other, more dangerous, conflicts that cannot be blamed on the Soviets.
The Middle East, for example, remains the most violent, unstable region in the world. Yet the conflict is fuelled by local antagonisms and by the flood of arms into area, which the United States feeds as much as the Soviets.
Worse, Reagan's fingerpointing at Nicaragua glosses over U.S. culpability. His call for the withdrawal of foreign troops neatly avoids the millions in aid that goes to the U.S.-backed contras.
As Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev approach their November summit, it's important that all the sources of friction between them are tossed up for discussion.
But none will be resolved if each keeps jockeying to claim the moral high ground.
Rob Karwath
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The fascination of dangerous games
Will shattered bones and sinnes
get a message across?
Tragedy ended the life of a 19-year-old KU sophomore last week. He lost his job to a stabbing.
The object of the game, popular in the Lawrence area, is to stand on a train trestle and jump off when the train comes, testing how close one can get to the train without getting hit.
But will this discourage other trainers from running in front of fast-moving trains? The sad fact is that in time it probably won't.
There are always those who want to play the dangerous games and be
Young adventurers will always find dangerous games, such as training or Russian roulette. For many, savoring the full flavor of the thrill of life involves flirtation with death.
Evan Walter Staff columnist
bold and adventurous, defying what the "cowards" say. And there are those, the majority, who prefer not to take deadly risks.
Although they might be in ae of the bravery of those who dare, those who avoid foolish risks obviously have life expectancy in their favor. But their words of caution have little effect on the others.
Calling the darers' sport dangerous and stupid won't prevent them from pursuing life-threatening games. Darers don't accept dangerous challenges because they muggle
them as safe. They enjoy the risk.
that安全They enjoy Darens throughout history have captured romantic hearts. The movie industry realized from the start that cautious people on the screen don't sell. Men fighting incredible odds do.
The great movie heroes — Indiana Jones, Rambo and nearly any John Wayne character — don't act in ways most people would consider wise.
Unfortunately, in real life these types don't always win.
When playing games involving a great risk of death, many die. Those who live to talk about it either perpetuate the glorification of danger or learn from the others' mistakes.
Before last week's incident, training was an opportunity for the adventurous to live as dangerously as many of the famous daredevils. But
last week, the dangers of training became realized.
Despite what campaigns against risky activities have said, the players aren't evil. They aren't acting against their will. They aren't acting sumid.
Those few, the risk-takers, will continue finding games that are dangerous despite what others have said.
The only hope is that many will take a warning from last week's incident. Nobody wants to die, and seeing someone have a greater effect than any words.
It would be a nice dream if last Sunday's accident was the last of its kind. But somewhere along the line newcomers will enter the scene and forget the consequences of dangerous games.
Verbatim
The ethics of life and death
Medical ethics have changed over the past 15 to 20 years in response to changes in medical technology. Advanced technology permits doctors to choose who receives the benefits of the improved medical care. Kathy Flanders, staff columnist, interviewed Robert P. Hudson, M.D., on the ethical questions raised by the new medical practices. Hudson teaches HPMD 911, Current Social and Ethical Problems of Medicine, at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
What is your definition of medical ethics?
HUDSON: Ethics try to guide moral behavior. Morals are what you believe, and ethics are the way you go about putting them into practice.
HUDSON: It revolves around what you think is the quality of life. In a case such as an 87-year-old with cancer throughout his body, you can predict the quality of life. With a premature infant, it's impossible to predic. If there's a question, we err on the side of life.
HUDSON: It has revolutionized them. Up until 15 to 20 years ago, death came when it came. Babies came when they came and they died regardless of what we did. The core question has shifted from can we do something to ought we do something?
A transplant is a good example. It's a very expensive procedure. In the Stanford University program, you are put in as a candidate, go in to be tested and wait without a guarantee of a donor. And you have to put up $125,000 before being admitted to the uprogram.
How has technology changed medical ethics?
What do you think about saving a baby but compromising its quality of life
We're talking about a form of treatment which is currently rationed. It's not a question of if we're going to ration health care, but how many can put up the necessary money.
HUDISON: Economics are the most pressing general problem we have to confront. It's not can we do it, but are we willing to pay?
Robert P. Hudson, M.D.
How do economics enter into the field of ethics?
The money it takes for one heart transplant can run an outpatient clinic in San Francisco with 35,000 visits a year.'
Do you think society is going to continue paying for expensive transplants?
HUDSON: Transplants are the dramatic part, but the real cost is in the care of the elderly.
Where I worry is if society is willing to pay for quality care. By the year 2030, 55 million people will be over the age of 65. The most rapidly growing segment of our population is that segment over the age of 85.
We pay 12 percent of our gross national product for health care now. How much more is the public burden? We contribute negatively to society?
I'm concerned that there will be subtle pressures on individuals to withdraw from society's protection. There will be an increase in rational suicide and it will be encouraged.
Attitudes will change to make it more acceptable because of economic pressures. It's been done over and over again in history and we find a moral justification for it. The quality of life for someone over the age of 75 isn't very good anyway.
HUDSON: Whenever you invoke economics, you always get into the field of ethics. There's only so much money to go around, so how to spend it fairly is an ethical question.
So economics figure largely into medical ethics?
The money it takes for one heart transplant can run an outpatient clinic in San Francisco with 35,000 visits a year. We have to decide how to spend the money. There's a town now. Chase is the word for it.
HUDSON: Manipulation of
What technological advances do you see in the future that will effect medical ethics?
genetic material gives a great promise for people suffering from genetic diseases such as Down's Syndrome. They will be able to change all the genetic defects in the cells except for the reproductive cells.
Another is cloning — they are making an exact copy of mammals in the laboratory. So there is no reason it can't work in human beings.
Sex selection is already practically here. They can give the parents the sex gender of a baby by taking a paternity test, be up to 100 percent before long.
As a first child, a boy is usually chosen. The worry is that people will ask for that two times out of three. Then there will be an imbalance between men and women.
There are many technical advances that are near perfection that have profound ethical implications. Should you be able to abort just because you want the opposite sex child? Tests can be taken early enough now to give your opportunity to abort if you can get a medical doctor to do it.
How do you think medical ethics affect life today?
I use the term myth in an anthropological sense — as a collective belief of a group, even if it's not supported by actions. We can't have a war and believe in the sanctity of life. We have to believe it, even if we don't act as if we did
HUDSON: The problem is pressure on our belief in the sanctity of life. If you allow it to diminish because you don't want to take care of old people, you've diminished it in general. The question is how to use technology wisely enough to preserve that belief, even if it is a myth that life is sacred.
Mailbox
Personifestly absurd
The inside back cover of the spring timetable uses the term "Freshersons."
Such an abination weasels into the language when misguided people confuse freedom of choice and equality of opportunity with license to butcher the language. There are indeed sexist terms in the language, but a campaign to change "man" words to "person" words is lexicographically and sexually ridiculous.
John B. Bremner
Women rightfully striving for equal rights do harm to their cause by such tours de farce.
Hupersons should person the sheepsparts to epersoncipate us from all personner of personipulation of our parent tongue, the language of our foreparents.
JOHN B. BREMNER
Stauffer professor of journalism
The thrill of danger
Some young adults seek danger.
Some young adults seek danger. This is true in all lands, from the cliff divers of South America and Madagascar to climbers of America and Europe, to the drag racers, chicken players and trainers of Kansas. It's just a part of being human, to get the adrenaline pumping once in a while.
When we have constructed a society so safe that life does not provide any thrills, we must seek them out, and when others refuse to do it for us,
That some die should come as no surprise. That is part of the definition of danger. When the risk has been eliminated, so has the thrill.
Any attempt to make a sport "safe" lessens the sport in the eyes of the individuals who need to play it.
Therefore, if the trains slow to a crawl on those crossings, adventurous people will find another game just as dangerous, pitting their skill against some other force, with their lives in the balance.
Such an ordinance would not be at all effective when there are so many places to seek danger. It would simplify in another outlet for pent-up burden.
Though I have resisted the impulse to go training, I think we would be better off if society were not so safe that we should have to resort to these means to find danger.
I'll never willingly cash in one scrap of freedom for safety.
Roy Dillinger Wilmore junior
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