4A
Wednesday. June 7. 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: RU-486, THE ABORTION PILL
Abortion pill lessens trauma
The prayers of these women could be answered if the Federal Drug Administration approves the drug mifepristone, known as the abortion pill. Mifepristone, or RU-486, its brand name, works by causing the fetal tissue to release itself from the uterus, much like a miscarriage.
With mifepristone, a woman simply makes three visits to a clinic. On her first visit, she ingests three 200 milligram pills of mifepristone. Two days later she returns and takes a 400 milligram dosage of a cramping drug.
A powerful vacuum rumbles. A scared 19-year-old woman lies on a cold, hard table. She is awaiting a surgical abortion. She realizes that within moments the fetus inside her will be sucked from her body by a vacuum, assisted by a sharp tool.
Millions of women have undergone this type of surgical abortion since 1973 when Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion in the United States. But for years, women with unwanted pregnancies have prayed for a miscarriage so they wouldn't be subjected to this gruesome, unnatural form of abortion.
Government approval of RU-486 can provide women with abortions that are less invasive than surgical methods.
It is at this visit that the fetal tissue is aborted. The woman must remain at the clinic for about four hours while she naturally releases the tissue. She returns 12 days later to clarify that the abortion was successful.
Mifepristone has been used in Europe for years by more than 150,000 women. It has been tested by 2,100 women in the United States at Planned Parenthood and other such clinics.
Opponents of mifepristone claim that approval will prompt more abortions and that there is no distinction between a surgical and medical abortion.
Women in the United States have had the right to legal abortions for more than 20 years. The next women's right should be the choice between a surgical or medical procedure.
The drug, however, allows the body to do the work, and it requires no anesthesia. No tools or vacuums are used, and the fetal tissue is not ripped from the woman's body.
Media not cause of breakdown
JUILLE HAES FIST FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.AT
THE ISSUE: MEDIA VIOLENCE AND FAMILY VALUES
It must be getting close to election time. Sen. Bob Dole has been planning ahead by dishing out criticism of Hollywood films and rap artists.
Urging Hollywood to clean up its act, Dole said last week that "our popular culture threatens to undermine our character as a nation."
Although conservatives praised his comments, Dole seemed to forget one wrench in his election-soundbite machine.
Our nation's problems were here before these movies and songs, and merely changing Hollywood's artistic expression isn't going to solve them.
These films and songs that the speaker of the House called "nightmares of deprivacy" merely mirror society. They enlighten society about what is wrong. They are not the problems, just the messenger of those problems.
In addition, the break
Sen. Bob Dole's attacks on movies and rap groups are good soundbites but not answers for crumbling relationships in the family.
down of family values has not been caused by "casual sex and even more casual violence" in movies and songs. A more natural explanation is economics, not entertainment.
Economic pressures lead to a variety of family problems when one or both parents must work long hours or when financial burdens translate into parental incompatibility or worse, violence.
Controlling what you and your children watch and hear is much easier than controlling an industry.
Dole should stop using movies and music as an easy campaign target.
Unfortunately, it is easier to attack this industry than to solve the problems it shows.
JAMIE MUNN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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Philip Morris had to recall 8 billion cigarettes for defective filters.
Rob Tapley / KANSAN
Camel brand lover blows smoke in face of other cigarette maker's recall flimflam
Recalling cigarettes is a joke.
I'm a smoker, and I still don't know the reasoning behind the recall of brands such as Marlboro, Benson & Hedges and Virginia Slims from store's bins.
I don't know if KU cigarette smokers realize this, but Philip Morris USA still is recalling many brands of cigarettes it makes because of contaminated filters.
According to the company, few people have turned in their cigarettes, and it's obvious why.
Now, I'm not saying recalling cigarettes is a bad idea. I've seen Philip Morris' full-page advertisement, and I know what it's like to smoke. The symptoms of bad filters that Philip Morris admit to are ridiculous.
The advertisement released in newspapers across the country on May 26 said that smoking a cigarette with a contaminated filter would give off a bad odor.
I can't describe the smell of a normal cigarette, but it's not the most pleasant odor in the world. In fact, smoking and smokers themselves stink. I would think any change in the smell would be an improvement.
STAFF COLUMNIST
It can't get any worse.
The advertisement also said that the contaminated cigarettes' taste might have a metallic or other off-taste. What is an off-taste exactly? I won't sugar-coat smoking. The taste is awful, and it is not the reason I
Newspaper reports and the company's advertisement said that continuous smoking of contaminated cigarettes might cause wheezing or discomfort.
smoke. The filter on a normal cigarette is like breathing in dirt, and the affertaste is similar to the sensation of chewing on used barbecue coals. So, once again, any difference in the taste has to be considered better than how it tastes now.
I could have told you that smoking cigarettes --- contaminate or not --will cause wheezing.
No kidding.
That is what all kinds of political-action groups have been trying to tell Philip Morris and other tobacco companies for years. Of course, officially, cigarettes aren't a huge health culprit.
Whatever.
If that was true, stores wouldn't be yanking almost every single brand Philip Morris produces. That is quite an expense for the company to be eating if there was a possibility that the contaminated cigarettes weren't distributed to stores.
The other thing I find funny about the cautionary advertisement is the wording Philip Morris uses to lessen its actions. According to the company, it is possible that no defective cigarettes have ever reached retailer's shelves.
And in the ad Philip Morris uses the word "defective" much more than "contaminated," which would be more truthful. The word "defective" sounds like the filters were just wrapped in paper wrong or something, instead of actually having a contaminant in them.
The wording in the ad isn't really
I smoke Camels, and I wouldn't turn in my cigarettes either if this fine Turkish blend of tobacco was being recalled in the same circumstances.
false, and by context it sounds much better for the company.
Why should I? The reasons given by the company for recall are so ridiculous that it's not even worth mytime.
Doesn't taste right? Gives off an odor? Does my a break.
It's about time the multinillion-dollar cigarette businesses were honest with the public. Not just in this situation, but in all circumstances.
Tell us that cigarettes cause lung cancer, emphysma and might aggravate asthma instead of dancing around the issue.
It's clear that smokers, like me, really don't care about health issues, and this situation is an example. People probably wouldn't ever turn in cigarettes unless they were laced with cyanide or something.
Gerry Fey Is an Omaha, Neb. senior in Journalism.
Clinton's plan would increase FBI's power at expense of American public's rights
I'm not a cautious person by nature, and, according to my mother, I never was.
My first day skiing I risked life, limb and a cheap pair of rental skis on an ill-advised trip down an expert slope. In a weak moment of youth, I called a man named Howling Wolf a liar. And in my most daring outing to date, I walked the streets of our nation's capital alone after midnight.
President Clinton wants to give the FBI more power. He said the change is necessary to insure national security and public safety. He wants agents to have the power to search our credit card records, and to make our phone records and motel logs more accessible. He wants the FBI to be able to infiltrate
People have called me foohardy and stupid, but now they will call me paranoid and right-wing because I urge caution in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. Is it the fear of a copycat or the huge amounts of fertilizer so readily available in the Heartland that drives my prudence?
STAFF COLUMNIST
No. I'm afraid of the FBI
and investigate groups even if no criminal evidence exists. And he wants to give the FBI a Counterterrorism Center, making these assaults on our freedoms that much easier. Have we forgot so soon the FBI abuses under the 1960s
You may think that time has passed. It hasn't.
According to *The Guardian*, the FBI made Southern Illinois University release photos of campus activists. It tapped one student's
and '70s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO)? Have we forgotten how it tried to destroy groups such as the American Indian Movement, the Black Panthers and the Student Left, or how it attacked Martin Luther King Jr. in the name of public safety and national security?
phone, made crank calls to her late at night and listed her on the Mirage Network, which requires city, county and state police to notify the FBI whenever a person's drivers license comes up in a criminal investigation or a routine traffic violation. She had done nothing illegal.
Under President Reagan, many of the FBI's illegal activities during COINTELPRO were made legal.
In Lawrence, agents have targeted the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. They have tapped the group's phones, broken into a house rented for its volunteers, and tampered with its safety deposit box. For the most part, this was all illegal activity, but it didn't matter to the FBL.
Agents now have the ability to infiltrate political organizations, conduct electronic and mail surveillance without a warrant, and search an individual without consent. They have used this power to create dividesiveness between African-American, environmental, anti-war, women's and political movements. They also have targeted and harassed ACT UP, a homosexual
Personally, I can walk through a farm supply store completely unaffected by the rows of fertilizer. I can park next to a Ryder truck without bolting from my car with my head covered. I can even converse with a middle-aged man in fatigues without letting him know what a putz I think he is.
But I also have moved my old squirrel gun to the front of the closet and have tried to encourage the territorial instincts of my Doberman, because I never know when I'll say too much or become too politically active to remain hidden from the FBI.
rights organization, to the extent it qualifies as psychological warfare. And now we want to give them more power to abuse?
When will agents decide to break into my house, tap my phone or go through my credit card records? I don't know, but I think the fact that they can and do is enough.
After all, it's just one more little Amendment standing in their way.
Personal behaviors linked to latest damaged goods
Todd Hlatt is a Lydon senior in social welfare.
Now even tainted consumer goods come in threes. First in the frenzy was Philip Morris cigarettes. Then there was the pink tulip on the can of Renuzit's Fresh Cut Flowers air freshener that looked like a penis. New Giant Green is recalling spinach it says may contain fly larvae.
ACUTE OBSERVATIONS
People now have reasons not to smoke,not to smell fresh and not to eat their vegetables.
Pecking birds poke hole in space shuttle planets.
Woodpeckers win the technology thwarter award for damaging NASA's space shuttle Discovery,
sheduled for launching this week.
training this week.
Trying to impress females during the mating season, the male woodpeckers made holes in the shuttle's fuel tank, some as big as four inches wide. Some holes penetrated to the fuel tank's metal wall.
Taking a strategic defense initiative, NASA used plastic owl decoys to drive the birds away.
Simpson's friend rushes from court hearing page
Lawyers failed to file the papers necessary to bring O. J. Simpson's friend and Kansas City Chiefs running back, Marcus Allen, to a Kansas City, Mo., court hearing last Friday. Allen's lawyers said he was on vacation but did not know if he had left in a white Ford Bronco.
Pet monkey goes ape,
slashes, eats, then dies
Lawyers had already started on a Twinkie defense.
After being captured by an animal control officer, the monkey apparently died of a heart attack.
When a Pennsylvania family took in a stray monkey last week, they were unprepared for the Bobbitt-tuese event that occurred.
The monkey had played happily until frightened by two men Thursday morning. The screaming monkey picked up a knife, for two hours, terrorized the family. The monkey slashed open and ate from bags of marshmallows and brown sugar. All the while, it tried to operate a cigarette lighter.
How to submit letters and guest columns
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the authors signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
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All letter and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. For any questions, call Jamie Munn, editorial page editor, at 864-4810.