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Wednesday, July 11, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Abortion ban
Louisiana Legislature's abortion bill approval demonstrates giant step backward for everyone
ouisiana's legislators have recently
I approved a bill that bans abortion in all but three situations: when the life of the mother is endangered, or when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. If a woman finds herself in any other situation — forget it. And what about the doctors who perform abortions in those other situations? It's 10 years hard labor.
The abortion debate rallies on . . . shouts of "murder" on the one side and "self-determination" on the other.
One is left wondering if this debate will ever end and if it does, who will lose.
Given the enlightened state of affairs in Louisiana, women will certainly lose. Lose the right to self-determination. Lose the right to control their reproductive lives. Lose the right to decide for themselves.
Senator John Saunders urged the Louisiana legislators to "vote for the 15,000 unborn
children who are murdered in this state every year . . . "
What Sen. Saunders forgets is that if this bil becomes law, not only will the children die, but so will the women. Why doesn't the Louisiana Legislature and all state legislatures invest more time and money in educating people?
Certainly, if this were the best of all possible worlds, women wouldn't need to obtain abortions, because men and women would be educated about sex and pregnancy, birth control would be free and easily accessed.
Puppy mill disgrace
But we don't live in this ideal place so we must deal with reality
Why don't we worry more about preventing pregnancy than preventing women's options? Why aren't we pro-active instead of reactionary? Why don't we create that ideal world — it is within our reach.
The editorial board
Substandard kennels deserve continued scrutiny
Suddenly, the issue of Midwest puppy mills is hot.
Many have criticized Attorney General Robert Stephan for not paying attention to these horrendous puppy mills and have attributed the sudden crackdown to the fact that this is an election year. Another finger is pointed at the pressure of animal welfare groups in California who have boycotted Midwest puppies. These could be the motivation for sudden interest, but it is not in the job description of the state attorney general to find substandard kennel owners and close them down.
Although the mills apparently have been around for a long time, 1990 has become the year to crack down on standard kennels and disreputable breeders. It's about time.
Although Kansas is one of a few states to have state inspectors for kennels, along with federal inspectors, these officials have not been able to ferret out the bad breeders from the good breeders.
Yes, once this issue comes to his attention he seems obligated to prosecute. But where are the district attorneys, county attorneys, and these inspectors whose job it is to track down the irresponsible net breeders and brokers?
There are supposedly 1,200 unlicensed kennels in this state and so far no one has been able to find the majority of them.
Something needs to be revamped in Kansas' inspection system since the pruce mills have come about and, in some instances, flourished. Reputable kennel owners agree; their businesses are being hurt by the boycott of all Midwest puppies.
They want action. The public wants action.
The result should be action.
Let's hope the inspectors take their jobs seriously, and the issue of puppy mills stays hot past election year and for as long as it takes to rid our state of them and their stigma.
The editorial board
The Supreme Court clarified libel case law when it ruled in favor of a plaintiff who alleged a newspaper columnist defamed him 15 years ago.
Other Voices
The columnist asserted by way of his opinion that a high school wrestling coach and a school superintendent had lied to the opponent in favor of the columnist, arguing that opinion is absolutely protected by the First Amendment.
The decision, written by Chief Justice William Rehquist, removes opinion from this lofty perch. Rehnquist said that the courts had misconducted previous libel decisions by the Supreme Court.
In a 1974 case, Gertz vs. Welch, the court said that "under the First Amendment there was no such thing as a false idea." Rehqunit noted that the notion of "idea" soon became synonymous with oition.
The court, including dissenting justices William Brennan and Thurgoed Marshall, said that there is a distinction between ideas and opinions. Moreover, an opinion by implifying a fact can defame.
Justice Breeman's dissenting opinion disagrees only in the application of the court's principle. He argued that the newspaper columnist did not complain to the court, that the column was clearly conjecture, and not based on fact.
The director of the Reporter Committee for Freedom of the Press said the decision "ironically is going to encourage irresponsible commentary at the expense of well-reasoned analysis." Even in the worst-case scenario this is a dubious assertion. The First Amendment has not disappeared. The court merely removed an artificial distinction.
From The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson. June 25.
It's appalling that the researchers who conduct federally-funded health studies routinely exclude women from the focus groups. But that's exactly what's happening, congressional investigators say. Increibly, knowing full well that the disease to be studied affects men and women, researchers sometimes have been given funding by the National Institutes of Health for studies that use only men.
What makes the situation even more reprehensible is that the NIH has had a policy in effect since 1986 that requires women to be included in studies unless their presence clearly is scientifically inappropriate. An NIH advisory committee reported in 1987 that less than 14 percent of the institute's budget was devoted to female students. Pat Schreeder, D-Colo, a leader of the Congressional Caucus for Women . . .
The good news is that the NIH essentially agrees with Schroeder. William Raub, the acting NIH director, said he and his colleagues know that they must correct the situation immediately. The caucus and the General Accounting Office — the investigative branch of Congress — must make certain Raub is held accountable.
We agree with Schroeder, who said what these dismal findings reveal simply is that "it's OK to put women's health at risk."
How drearly familiar is the criticism being made of President Bush's decision to suspend friendly talks with Iran, the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Eighteen months ago, U.S. officials announced they would engage in a
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From the Dallas Times Herald, June 25.
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Since then, PLO operatives — under orders of high-ranking PLO officials — have conducted several terrorist raids. One a few weeks ago was aimed at a U.S. embassy in Israel. It was prevented only by quick-acting Israeli police and troops.
dialogue with the PLO to help bring peace to the Middle East. The agreement was conditioned on PLO renunciation of violence.
Bush, finally tired of PLO duplicity, last week called a halt to the farce. He said he was suspending talks with the PLO until he had some evidence it would keep its end of the bargain.
Certainly, the rabid dog has been angered. He'll probably bite to try to force us to give it in to him. But his teeth are strong and the teeth in the tooth — not a pat on the head.
■ From the Martinsburg (W.Va.) Evening Journal, June 23.
Almost immediately there was criticism. Opponents of Bush's stance said he may have opened the door to more violence in the Middle
Higher rates of immigration improve the economy for all
America, land of immigrants,
has long been of two minds
about immigration.
On the one hand, people remember their own forebears. They react to the words on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
On the other hand, the new immigrant is often resented. The Irish were pouring into America by the tens of thousands to avoid famine, public sentiment was against Irish immigration.
When Italianes arrived by the boathead to provide the labor supply that transformed the country from an agricultural society into an industrialized society, sentiment was antiItalian.
When the Chinese settled in San Francisco and became famous for the laundries they operated, their non-Chinese competitors persuaded the state legislature to require that laundries be built of brick. Somehow, they got it right, and worked out of wooden buildings were Chinese.
There's always been at work a last-one-off-the-boat, pull-up the-ladder syndrome.
Organized labor, normally on the liberal side of issues, frequently opposes liberalized immigration. It will take jobs and take lower wages.
Old Guard conservatives also often want to restrict immigration. They fear that the Western European heritage that is the foundation of the Constitution and the culture will be worn away under waves of today's newcomers, many dark-skimmed and from the Third World, who know nothing of the Bible, the Magna Carta, checks and balances.
Yet humanitarian instincts exert their own tug. The land of opportunity over the decades has sheltered those yearning to be free.
Exerting the tug these days are Russian Jews and Eastern Europeans who waited for years for the opportunity to leave and risked much by applying to Vietnamese who seized their homeland in dangerous boats; Afghans who fought in a war supported by the United States.
Walter R.
Mears
Syndicated
columnist
Let them in, argues a conservative economist, Stephen Moore, who said he bases his appeal not on any
squishy sentimentality but on selfserving pragmatism.
"I see it not that we're doing good for them but that they do good for us." he said.
Moore, formerly with the Heritage Foundation, is executive director of the American Immigration Institute, newly founded to campaign for increased immigration. His co-chairman is Boshwitz, R-Minn., who was born in Berlin, and a liberal, Mayor Raymond Flynn of Boston.
"If America's going to continue to be a first-class economic power, we've got to be able to compete." Moore said in an interview. "If an immigrant works 18 hours a day, that's not enough for him, what's capitalism is all about: work hard and you'll get ahead."
He said the United States now admits about three immigrants per 1,000 residents. At the turn of the century he said, "We have 15,000. His group wants to return to 15."
At the same time, as a conservative, Moore opposes the $5,000 per person given refugees (but not immigrants) resettling in the United States as a safety net. He said it implants a welfare mentality and starts the newcomers off looking for handouts.
"Refugees locating in California have four times as high a dependency rate and only half the labor force participation rate as do those in Texas, where benefits are less than half as genetically," he said in an essay for The Heritage Foundation. He would substitute low-interest loans.
U. S. law distinguishes between immigrants and refugees and between economic refugees and political refugees, those who have "a well-founded fear of persecution" if they are returned to their former country.
Currently, the United States
admits about 600,000 people a year, of whom about 100,000 are political refugees. It is sometimes estimated that nearly 20% of it brings the annual total to 1 million.
Moore argues that the distinction between political and economic refugees no longer makes sense. The policy, he said, translates to: "We will not let you die at the hands of the executioner, but are ambivalent to your death from economic deprivation."
He cites what happened 10 years ago. In what became known as the Mariel boat lifter, thousands of Cubans, let loose by Fidel Castro as a safety valve for his island's faltering economy, traveling in tiny boats, arrived in Florida. Ultimately, they numbered about 120,000.
Americans looked askance. In a poll, 91 percent said all immigration to the United States should be halted until the national unemployment rate, then 7 percent, fell to 5 percent.
Much was made of the psychotics and the criminals Castro sent along with economic immigrants.
"But if you look at the vast majority who came, they have assimilated extraordinarily well in the Miami economy, which throughout the 1980s flourished," said Moore. "Miami Mayor Xavier Saurer called the boat lift the greatest rescue mission since Normandy.
Moore said a study done at Princeton University found that eight years after the Mariel outpouring other minority groups had not suffered from the infusion of low-skilled workers.
"If 100,000 Cubans could assimilate in a very short time in one labor market, ideas of bringing in more money would be a greater concern," you mightn't frighten them," he said.
"Immigrants have a very high rate of entrepreneurship," he said. "We see this in the refugee groups — the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Afghans. It is very common to see Afghans owning convenience stores, parking lots, taxicab franchises. They're not only starting businesses, they're often hiring American workers."
> Walter R. Meares is a vice president and columnist for the Associated Press.
Lawrence exalts commerce over culture
This week we ought to pay tribute to one of the great
civic-minded, culturally-aware businesses of our town, Allen Press, and head of the family-o-ny-Allens. Allen are fighting hard, as they have for two years, to keep one of the most historic traditions of the Lawrence business community going.
The Allens lost a recent battle in the two-year-old war to demolish the 120-year-old Old English Lutheran Church near the corner of Eleventh and New Hamphire streets, when a judge issued a ruling against the demolition. But they plan to keep trying.
David
Weldner
Staff columnist
The Allens, of course, are not the first in the long line of Lawrence businessmen and lawmakers who have fought to preserve the value of greed over cultural heritage. Two summers ago, Douglas County Bank planned to tear down several homes on Ninth Street to build a bigger, more convenient bank. The proposal was thwarted by citizens and groups concerned about the neighborhood and the
character of Lawrence. They were not motivated by greed; they were concerned with the place in which they lived.
Greed also was defended by the City Commission when it voted down an amendment to the city's human rights ordinance that would have prohibited businesses from discriminating on the basis of actual or perceived offence; after all you probably wouldn't want to spend money somewhere where you might get AIDS.
More recently, greed was proudly championed by the Chelsea Group, which built the half-empty factory outlet mail. They believed preserving the spaces was not worth sacrificing the building of an eyesor so revolving that sometimes I wish that if Quanrill
were resurrected, it would be his first stop.
University officials still are guilty of dragging their feet on condemning the social class structure that welcomes with open arms those who have money and of failing to recruit underclasses, which would so greatly benefit from higher education.
The University of Kansas also has endorsed the notion of greed. For example, administrators watched a Greek system exist that promoted social elitism until a racial incident reportedly occurred at the house of one of the most prolific offenders that brought a rallying point to those oppressed.
So if Arly Allen wishes to tear down something from Lawrence's
heritage, let us remember greed is part of that same heritage. It is also an everyday part of Lawrence life.
Then there exists a greed that's more subtilly represented in the community pulse, like a local newspaper that is so aggressively pro-business and so lackadvised in its role as a watchdog for the people. And the people are chosen to debate whether or not to burn the flag rather than to deal with the people they represent.
Allen cunningly has used the argument that the building is endangered those who walk past it. If Arly Allen were so concerned about the welfare of those walking the streets, he would be picking up the garbage overflowing from the dumpsters behind his plant. The burden is concerned about is money, and demolishing the church would enable him to expand and make more money.
The only thing that places this greed in jeopardy is the care some people actually have about something old, which, as Ron Schneider of the Lawrence Preservation Institute called it a economic value.
Unless those who care about these aesthetic values such as architecture and cultural heritage step forward, another human part of Lawrence will be lost to the almighty dollar.
David Weidner is a St. Louis senior majoring in English and journalism.