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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 17, 1984)
Monday, December 17, 1934 Dally Nebroskan Pago 5 pall X liberated! In the end, Dr. John Rock was a certified member of that small band of human beings who change the world. The man who died last week at ee 94 was not exactly the father of The Pill. If anything," he once said, "I am the stepfather." Indeed, the couitly and humane doctor, teacher, researcher was just one of a quartet who deve loped the oral contraceptive in the 1950s. But he was No. 1, the man who became the pill's public defender the popularizer and point man for the social medicine that initiated a sexual revolution. Rock's life covered almost a century of extraordinary change. When he wa3 born in Massachu setts in 1890, the average life span of an American was 40 years. By the time he died, it had nearly doubled. When he was born, birth was controlled by abstinence, withdrawal and a few rudimen tary devices known only to the elite. Now, planning for parent hood is the American norm and the international goaL He was part of this story. Ironically, this lanky man of Irish descent and Catholic re ligion, a father of five, began his career dealing with problems of infertility. He was the first to fer tilize an egg in a dish, the fore runner to test-tube babies. In his later years, Rock would say with amusement, "I spent the first 30 years of my professional life get ting as many women pregnant as possible and now I am accused of spending the rest of my life to reverse the process." But there was a coherence to his life, in his belief that, "It is my job to preserve family first and then the Family of Man." As a doctor, he learned about sexual shyness and ignorance and about respect for his female pa tients. His belief in the importance or sexual love and the need for women to control fertility came together in development and de fense of the pill From our own vantage point in the mid-'80s, it's sometimes hard to imagine the struggle that he was a part of a struggle to change attitudes and laws about contraception. In the Victorian age of Rock's birth, contracep tives were immoral, a blatant ad mission that sex was for plea sure. It wasn't until 1930 that the Anglican church became the first to approve of birth control. As late as 1960 a couple using con traceptives in their own Connec t. i S EDITOR . GENERAL MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER ADVERTISING MANAGER ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITORS COPY DESK SUPERVISOR SPORTS EDITOR ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR NIGHT NEWS EDITORS Ellen Goodman Julia Jordan Judi Nyjren WIRE EDITORS Lauri Hopplt Terl Sparry ' The Dally Nebraskan (USPS 144-080) is published by the JNL Publications Board Monday through Friday in the fall end spring semesters and Tuesdays and Fridays In the summer sessions, except during vacations. Readers are encouraged to submit story idaas and com ments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-2583 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The public also has jeeess to the Publications Board. For information, call Nick Fcioy. 47S-C275 or Angela Nietfield. 475-4231. Pcstmsstsr. Ssnd address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, 24 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. C3SC3-C443. Second class postage paid at Lincoln, HE 63510. ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1134 DAILY KSSRASXAM wdDmem ticut bedroom was committing a felony. The last birth-control Laws were in effect in Massachusetts until 1972. It T7S3n't easy for Rock, in his 70s, to challenge his'Church's stand against birth control. As a international public speaker, he would often repeat what the curate In his childhood parish told him: "John, always stick to your conscience. Never let anyone else keep it for you and I mean anyone else." His pill had stunning, unpara lleled effect on American society. In the 1950s, for really the first time, women could experience sex without fear of pregnancy. For the first time, women knew the kind of sexual freedom that only men had known. Taking the pill was a private and, for many, a liberating act. A woman, married or not, with or without her partner's knowledge could go on the pill to "regulate a period," or "for cramps" or simply for spontaneity. Today, when more couples choose sterilization, the pill is still the most popular form of sexual security for young women. There is no social change that comes without new conflicts, and emotional conflicts have been the most widespread side effect of the pill. One woman's freedom is another woman's license and an other's insecurity. Without wav ing the fear of pregnancy, it has become more complicated for some women to say "no," to define their own feelings about sexual relations. Other women resent having the "freedom" of full re sponsibility for birth control We are still fashioning a comfortable moral evolution for-our sexual revolution. , Rock must have experienced some disappointment with his great hope. It is not the hearlded perfect solution to the popula tion explosion. For some women the pill has proved too danger ous, for others too complicated, for still others in the Third World too expensive. The Church hier archy that he tried to persuade has yet to approve of his "natural contraceptive." But Rock took controversy with equanimity and humor. Some 20 years ago, at the height of his fame and infamy, an angi y Catho lic wrote, excoriating him: "You should be afraid to rcet your Maker." Rock wrote back to her: "My dear Madam, in my faith we are taught that the Lord is with us always. When my time comes, there will be no need for intro ductions" 1BM, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company WeshlKS&on Post Writers Group Chris Wclsch, 472-1765 Dante I ShettOI KStly Po"cfcy Torn Erns fc'ichlsla Thuman Ktvin WOTieSt Keirj Sodarfcsrg -Stacia Thomas Vickl Rungs Ward W. Triplet! Ill Christcphar Burbach Lauri Hoop! - f' """1 mm pi ml PJLS Powe r overri Convicted felon Douglas should resign office The immediate facts are clear. Paul Douglas, our elected attorney general, has been convicted of a felony by a jury of his peers. Paul Doug las, our elected attorney gen eral, faces a sentence of one to 20 years, a $25,000 fine, or both. Paul Douglas, our elected attor ney general, says he is consider ing resigning his office and will make a decision sometime this week. The immediate question that must be asked here is whether it is good public policy to even allow a convicted felon to con sider if he should keep his job as the highest legal officer in the state? I think the answer must be that it is not. James A. Fussell In the minds of many Nebras kans, Douglas exists today more as an issue than as a man. That is his own doing. He was once widely respected as an honora ble man.' Now, he is a convicted felon still serving as Nebraska's attorney general. An honorable man would have prevented such a damning situation. An honorable man Would have resigned long ago. Apparently, Douglas is not such a man. Douglas was quoted Fri day in the Lincoln Star as saying he would sit down with friends and decide what he should do. He said he would make a deci sion sometime this week. I'm shocked and saddened to see a man I once respected display such gall and bad judgement. How many convicted felons that he prosecuted had such leisure? This is an embarrassing example of the influence of power and privilege in Unsigned editorials represent official policy of the fall 1984 Daily Nebraskan. They are writ ten by this semester's editor in chief, Chris Welsch. Other staff members will write editorials throughout the semes ter. They will carry the author's name after the final sentence. Editorials do not necessarily reflect the views of the university, c ) 1 V Nebraska. For shame. Forget for a moment that Douglas is an insulated member of the bureaucracy. Think of him only as a person who has committed a felony offense. The gut issue is fairness, and the parallels with the rest of us mortals borders on the absurd. If Murray at the meat market is convicted of a felony, Murray doesn't get to say, in effect, "Quit my job? Gee, I haven't decided yet. I'm having some of the boys over to talk about it. I'll let you know sometime next week." No, Murray is out on his ear. Is Paul Douglas any different than Mur ray? Murray sure thinks so. And so do, I suspect, the Commonwealth depositors. The mere fact that Douglas can hold his head up and have the opportunity to say that he is now considering resigning after being convicted of perjury is a slap in the face to 7,000 Com- ' monwealth depositors who already have been stabbed in the back by the state of Nebraska. And still the step-by-step tor ture of unending legal proce dures continues. Paul Douglas may eventually lose his job in the foreseeable future. Com monwealth victims may yet get their state-guaranteed money back. And Walter Mondale may make a comeback in '88, but don't bet on it. Meanwhile, all we hear are cliches and platitudes. Be patient. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. Baloney. To too many Nebraskans, the wheels of justice have ground to a halt and rusted to the floor. Their motto has become the battle cry from the movie "Network:" "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore." I don't blame them. It seems to me that the Ne braska Constitution speaks Editorial Policy its employees, the students or the NU Board of Regents. The I'aily Nebraskan's publish ers are the regents, who estab lished the UNL Publications Board to supervise the daily production of the newspaper. According to the policy set by the regents, responsibility for the content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its student editors. w r A t- 1 Jr i BEFORE I , If,.- 5IS SI. clearly enough. To me, it says, no felons in public office, period. Despite that, Douglas may con tinue to serve for an indetermi nate amount of time. Sometimes it behooves even the mighty legal machine to set aside the blasted rules and regulations and just do what's right. Government of the people, for the people and by the people may not have perished from the face of the earth, but it has sure slipped a good bit in Nebraska. It needn't have in Douglas' case. A law was repealed in 1972 that leclared .any consti tutional office to be vacant if the officeholder was convicted of a felony. That law made sense and we must question its repeal But perhaps the larger ques tion surrounding Douglas' state of employ, in light of the Com monwealth fiasco, is how long Nebraska can afford to do nothing to further the cause of justice before losing the respect and good will of the people it purports to serve. Beyond all the technicalities of the law, what is at stake in Ne braska is simply the integrity of the state and the integrity of our elected officials. No amount of legal mumbo-jumbo can get that back once it is lost Trust has to be earned. Sad to say, some good people no longer trust the state of Nebraska. A Commonwealth depositor who didn't want to be identified might have put it best. "What do I think of the Paul Douglas case? I'm ashamed. Ashamed of the state of Nebraska. Ashamed of its elected officials espe cially the governor for not telling Douglas to pack his things and get out. Ashamed of Paul Douglas for not resigning long before this. Ashamed of the whole state for selling the cause of justice short for the sake of political expendiency." Me, too. . em essi a j . mes luscice ma VI WOM : f
