Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
Monday, September 20, 1982
ditoiiail.
State should not pay to make abortions available
Sen. Bernice Labedz of Omaha is right in requesting
that the state Department of Public Welfare be prohibited
from using state money to make abortions available.
Labedz, one of the state Legislature's most ardent
abortion opponents, asked Gov. Charles Thone during the
weekend to have the Welfare Department draft regulations
that would ban it from using state dollars to "facilitate
abortions," the United Press International reported.
Labedz, a South Omaha resident, has previously in
troduced anti-abortion legislation in the Unicameral.
Earlier this summer, she said that after the Welfare
Department drafts the regulations she requested, she will
determine what further legislative action to take.
The request for the funding regulations came after a
July 24 incident at a South Omaha private abortion
clinic.
Morally desirable
doesn't mean 'law'
On Feb. 6, a 12-year-old rape victim in Michigan gave
birth after being refused an abortion. Her mother, it
seems, was against the abortion (the rapist was the
woman's "boyfriend") and so the Kalamazoo County
Juvenile Court judge legally prevented it. Since then, the
court has decided that because of her age the girl is unfit
to care for the infant, and has placed the baby in a foster
home.
In Pennsylvania last month, a 23-year-old woman who
had been in a coma since June won a court order that
A girl under state custody at the Nebraska Center for
Children and Yputh in Lincoln was driven in a state car
and by two state employees to the clinic to have an
abortion.
After Labedz learned about the event, the Welfare
Department said no state funds were used to pay for the
girl's abortion and that no state law was violated in using
a state car to transport the girl.
Soon afterward, the deputy director for the Welfare
Department said state law requires that state wards receive
the proper" medical attention. In the July 24 incident, the
girl's doctor recommended an abortion be completed.
In a report on the incident, requested by Labedz, the
Welfare Department said it had not paid for any abortion
for wards during the last two years.
The report said 10 girls under state care had had abor-
( Julia O'Gara
allowed her to have an abortion. Her mother, fearing the
pregnancy might endanger her daughter's chances for
recovery, filed, suit in Chester County to allow doctors to
terminate the pregnancy even though the daughter was
not able to give "informed consent."
In Nebraska recently, an incident involving a state ward
caught the attention of Omaha Sen. Bernice Labedz. The
youth involved was driven to an Omaha abortion clinic in
a state-owned car. Labedz is opposed to using state funds
to pay for abortions and reimbursing state employees who
use their own vehicles for transportation to abortion
clinics.
"As long as there is one abortion performed in the
state of Nebraska and tax dollars are used, I will continue
to investigate," she said.
Ethical and legal arguments concerning abortion are
nothing now. Since the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court rulings
in the cases of Doe vs. Bolton and Roe vs. Wade,
politicians, religious leaders and philosophers have
struggled to define what is both morally judicious and
legally desirable regarding abortion.
In the Senate these past two weeks, the debate was on
again. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina, and Orrin
Hatch, R-Utah, sponsored separate pieces of legislation
that would enable the federal government or the states to
prohibit or severely limit abortions. The rationale for
Helms' argument was that the Supreme Court was
wrong in its 1973 ruling that allowed abortions and
should therefore overturn that ruling. Although the two
proposals were defeated, they are sure to come up again
during next year's congressional session.
Abortion is an extremely complex and volatile topic.
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tions during those years and only in the July 24 case was
a state car used. Additionally, the report said that
although no wards had their abortions paid for, last year
state and federal funds were used for four abortions for
women receiving welfare.
The report verified that wards are not getting state
financed abortions - a major concern of Labedz. That is
as it should be. The report also verified that in at least one
case, state resources - namely a state car and two state
employees - were used to help a ward obtain an abortion.
That is not as it should be.
The governor should fulfill Labedz's request that the
Welfare Department draft and adopt funding prohibitions
in abortion cases. The state doesn't pay for wards'
abortions; it should be consistent and not pay for making
those abortions available either.
Partners one day,
opponents the next
Two scenes out of recent newsreels are stuck in my
mind: images of friendship and competition, winning
and losing and caring.
The first scene was a page one photo of Pam Shriver
walking off the court at Forest Hills, arm in arm with
Martina Navratilova - the victor comforting the van-
fj Elle
Vj5 Goodman
and any attempts to simplify the argument and deal with
it objectively are almost always met with defeat. I he
battle lines have been clearly drawn and people hasten to
queue up on the side of their favorite ideology: pro-life
over here, pro-choice over there.
But it is not enough to merely state that abortion is
fundamentally right or wrong "just because 1 think so."
Too many variables are involved. Before coming to any
conclusions about how one stands on the abortion issue, it
would be advisable to consider the difference between
moral and legal responsibilities. Just because something
can be defined as a morally desirable act does not neces
sarily mean that it should be translated into law.
There are many troubling questions about abortion.
Should it be used only when the life of the mother is at
stake? What about cases of confirmed congenital
deformities or mental retardation? Rape and incest? Or
failure of birth control?
And if abortion is prohibited because of someone else's
belief in the "sanctity of life," then who should take re
sponsibility for that resulting life - the mother or those
who force her by law to continue the pregnancy? Un
fortunately, anti-choice proponents offer no consistent or
reasonable answers to these questions.
Who what extent, then, are we our brother's and our
sister's keepers? As a moral question, it is best left to the
individual, not the courts, to decide.
quished. The two friends who had just battled each
other would soon again be doubles partners.
The next scene was relayed to me secondhand. It
took place in the Senate chamber where Bob Packwood
was standing alone, filibustering against, the Helms anti
abortion amendment. As he read from James Mohr's
history of abortion, Jesse Helms entered. The senator
from North Carolina put his arm around the senator
from Oregon and together they walked around the floor
as Packwood continued to read. Even in conflict, they
rubbed shoulders.
If I were a photo editor, I would have written the
same caption under these snapshots: No Hard Feelings.
They were pictures of two people, on opposite sides of
the net, on opposite sides of a political battle, reassuring
each other that they could still get along, walk along.
They were, in that sense, portraits of professionals.
It's pros, after all, who learn how to fight wholeheartedly
without feeling angry at the opposition. Without taking
it personally.
This is a tough business for the bulk of us "amateurs."
Few can manage it without training. Certainly not as
kids. In my own childhood, when I disagreed with my
father, he thought we were debating and I thought we
were arguing. Only I took it personally.
Even today, I think it's hard for a lot of us to see
competition - for points or points of view - without
assuming personal conflict.
Continued on Page S
DOlf T tQKJ fi? ME.
NVIP IT
003
Letters
Episcopalians differ on prayer book changes
The sweeping generalities which charac
terize the syndicated column by Ross
Mackenzie in the Sept. 16 Daily Nebraskan
would be scarcely worth notice except
that Mackenzie implies that he is an
insider who knows what is going on in
the Episcopal Church nationwide.
It he were. to circulate among the
deputies and exhibitors, instead of
spending all m time with members of the
Society for the Preservation of the 1928
Prayer Book, Mackenzie might !nd more
enthusiasm for the church and the Lord
out there among the rank and file than he
imagines. The pvople see and I talk with
arc, by and larj-c. pleased with the new
Praver book dmJ the proposed iivmnai
than are Mackenzie and associates, and
by no means feel that Episcopal worship
has been revised into "mundane irrele
vance." More importantly, many feel that
the church has much more important
matters on its agenda than preserving
the exclusive use of Elizabethan English,
as beautiful as that may be.
Incidentally, the Gallup poll to which
Mackenzie refers (citing a "33 percent
drop in allegiance since the mid-1970s"),
has been largely discredited by official
church statistics showing no such loss
in actual membership.
The Rev. Don !laim.y, chaplain
St. Mark's ontheCampusEpiscopalChiirJ.
I