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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 1987)
Friday, January 23, 1987 Page 4 Daily Nebraskan 0 n Cl MUiL JM1L Nebrayskan University ol Nebraska-Lincoln Quips and quaotes DuBose should get rid of car Maybe Nebraska football player Doug DuBose should think about getting rid of his car. That automobile, a Nis san 300ZX, hasn't brought him anything but trouble since he purchased it. First came the incident with the leasing of the vehicle that led to the football team being put on probation and the suspension of his final year to play football. His suspension never really mattered, since he injured his knee before the sea son started, forcing him to miss his senior year. Last Monday, DuBose was arrested in his home on a bench warrant because he failed to appear in court Jan. 8 to pay fines. DuBose pleaded guilty Nov. 18 to operating an improperly registered vehicle for more than 30 days. He has been forced to pay $171 in fines and 10 percent of his $1,000 bail. Doug, is a car really worth all this trouble? OWhile on the subject of foot ball, did you know you can buy a can of pop for 25 cents in the South Stadium locker room? Vou pay 40 cents in any other build ing on campus and 45 cents in the Nebraska Union. We wonder about the disparity of prices around the campus, especially the 25 cents. O Speaking of pop, Alpha Tau Omega is advised to clean up its act or at least the Centennial Mall just east of its house. The mall is filled with broken pop bottles and other trash seen Abortion. What is it? Is it a woman exercising her right over her own body, or is it the ending of human life before it can live on its own? Unfortunately, most will say it depends on what you think. If only all problems were so con veniently solved. I believe in the abortion issue, the crux of the problem has been hastily glazed over and a secondary and less important issue is getting all the atten tion. The real question is, "When does human life begin?" If it begins at con ception, then abortion is the taking of human life. If life begins at some later stage, then an abortion is a woman exercising her right over her own body. From my personal experiences with the biological sciences, the question of when life begins is clear. It begins at conception. Certain biological pro cesses begin at conception and cease only at the body's death. You started out at conception as a one-celled human being (a zygote), progressed as a fetus in your mother's womb and finally became a newborn infant. You continued through several more stages of physiological and psychologi cal development first a child, then an adolescent and finally an adult. You are now that same human being con sisting of trillions of cells just like the one at conception, and you are now capable of reading and understanding this printed page. But for some reason our government continues to say a woman's right over her body takes precedence over the right to be born. It is my personal belief that the government is using the ignor ance of the masses as part of a clever and calculating scheme to reduce the number of people now on government assistant s programs. We're all aware of how the govern Jeff Korbelik, Editor, 4721766 James Rogers, Editorial Page Editor Lise Olsen, Associate News Editor Mike Keilley, S'iyhl Sen s Editor Joan Rezao, Copy Desk Chief thrown from the ATO house. Monday a window was spotted in a ma' . tree. Come on, guys, use the dui ipster. OTlu Daily Nebraskan has already acknowledged its sup port of FarmAid III, the concert prompted by country-music sin ger Willie Nelson for disadvan taged farmers. We were impressed with the number of students, 60, who showed up for the support meeting. But be wary: FarmAid III is a good idea only if Memor ial Stadium can be protected from damage. OSheldon Film Theatre should be complimented for bringing in director Alex Cox's "Sid and Nancy." The movie depicted the demise of Sex Pistols' bass guit arist Sid Vicious and his groupie girlfriend, Nancy, because of heroin addiction. We're not try ing to be movie critics, but the movie gave us a realistic look at several social issues that affect today's youth, including rock music and drugs. Thank you, Sheldon. The DN would like to con gratulate Danny Nee on his fine start as Nebraska basketball coach. He has led the Huskers to an 11-5 start and entered the "twilight zone" of fast-paced basketball. Has anyone noticed how much Nee looks like Rod Serling? This is not an insult, Danny. ORed M&Ms are back. Every thing needs a little color, even M&Ms. Go Big Red! ment has been trapped by human geo metrical progression in the fields of social security and welfare. Again, this is only one of my personal beliefs, and I can only speculate on our government's true intentions. But if this be the case, what will we have sacrificed for present gain, and what will haunt us in future pain? The abortion issue has many roots. One of the best explanations is given by Dr. Charles Rice, a constitutional scholar from Notre Dame: "Many peo ple are caught up in a wave of relati vism. Denying that they know what is objectively right or wrong, they rely on legal positivism. This is the notion that since no one knows what is just, the political process (in this case the Supreme Court) will be the ultimate arbiter. Whatever this process then decrees will be accepted as valid law, whether it be Auschwitz or Roe vs. Wade." I'd like to say I hope I never see the day, but it may be just reward for those people out there who are kicking and screaming at us "pro-lifers" if one day, by children yet unborn who grew up in a society that was "anti-life," they are taken away in their old age kicking and screaming because this "free" and "modern" society they helped create has no more use for them. Charles Moser senior chemistry Perhaps one of the most thoughtless and selfish lines spoken by those favor ing abortion is that males have no place in the debate. Those of you who believe this may be dismayed to learn that I am a male and opposed to abor tion, but I would like to think we have a higher purpose here. I am also and more importantly, as you are, a human. The debate should not be male vs. female, but human vs. human. And while debating, let us not forget the cause of disagreement, another human. For, you see, that child in the uterus has had a full human comple ment of chromosomes since concep tion, just as we; she (or he) has had brain waves since six weeks after con ception, just as we; his (or her) heart has been beating for 3 12 weeks, just as ours. All of these are signs of a life, particularly a human life. And did you know she or he was decidedly female or male at the moment of conception, because of the father's sperm cell, not the mother's egg. So, you see, we cannot lower the discussion to the triviality of gender. For aboition is the disposal of humans by humans, with no regard for sex. 1 challenge you, then, to look at abortion from a human point of view, be it man, woman, or, lest we forget, child. Terry Radke graduate student animal science. Differences of opinion, even on many important issues, do not necessarily demonstrate a moral gulf. The abortion issue, though, does possibly entail this moral gulf. This issue is unique in that it probes the moral content of liberal ism, rather than simply the moral judgment of liberals. The pro-choice forces have gone from one line of defense to another. For instance, the right to privacy they used to profess and, to some extent, still do. Where they came up with this sophistry I don't know, and really don't care, for it is on its way out. Privacy, I agree, is a boon, but it is not absolute, and when the morality of the private act is what is questioned, an appeal to privacy is ludicrous. What the pro-abortion forces are, in essence, asking for is the right to be free from responsibility. In a free, civ ilized society with a commonly accepted set of moral values, this is not possible. For the very nature of freedom entails an essential relationship between rights and responsibilities. That is, for every right there is a responsibility. If one wants less responsibility, one must give up a right, and if one wants another right, one must accept increased responsibility. The pro-abortion forces have lost all comprehension of this relationship. As you can see, one can not have the right to be free from responsibility. This holds true, of course, only in a society with a moral code of conduct present. If we abandon our moral code in order to gain the right to be free from responsibility, we also abandon our right to call ourselves a civilized society. Industrialized, yes, but not civilized. In an essentially uncivilized society, the only law that prevails is the law of survival of the fittest. In the case of the mother and the unborn child, the child doesn't stand a chance. Daniel D. Bousek senior industrial engineering I am not pro-abortion as much as I am against anti-abortion. The link this movement has with fundamentalist Christianity is something I truly fear, and 1 cannot come to the simple minded, blind belief that making abor tions illegal will solve something. It won't. Women don't have abortions as a method of birth control they have them because they need them. And because they need them (for reasons that I find more condemning of this society than their moral character), they will continue to have them, regard less of the law. They will have them performed illegally in the backrooms of basements. They will take expensive trips to Mexico. They will perform abortions themselves, at home in their bathtubs, with coat hangers. There will be, should the law change, fewer abortions in America, but there will also be more suicides, more cases of child abuse and abandonment, more broken homes, more deaths as a result of unsanitary abortion procedures, and more situations where thousands of women will be forced to suffer the myriad of lifelong problems that un wanted pregnancies can cause. But I don't like abortion. I think it's a horrible solution to a complex prob lem. I love kids, and I'm convinced that many of these unwanted children could be placed in loving homes. I also feel sorry for those women (often young girls) who find a need to abort their children. It isn't a decision they soon forget. What we really should concern our selves with, as a society, is why are so many women getting pregnant if they d( n't want to be? " 4aybe part of the problem comes from1 television where sexual intimacy is often glorified,' but birth control is rarely mentioned. Maybe TV producers could increase public awareness about safe sex. Maybe just once, the two characters, just before they tumble passionately and hopelessly in bed together, could discuss the possibility of pregnancy. Our young adults need sex education from television and cer tainly from our schools. And there is plenty of research to support this point, especially the stu dies performed at John Hopkins Uni versity. Women first participated in sex at a later age and have unwanted preg nancies less often, if they are educated in advance about human sexuality. Ironically, though, the biggest obstacle to this solution lies mostly with the fundamentalist Christians themselves. Many of them still equate sex with sin so much so they find it difficult even to talk about. Sex educa tion, they wrongly believe, is sin educa tion, and they continually turn up their noses at the facts. Maybe this country needs to make abortion illegal again. And then, in 10 years, make it legal, oscillating every decade or so between these two ex tremes. Maybe in 100 years, people with a more historic perspective will see that nothing was accomplished, and a generation of Americans will step up and put out the fire instead of simply trying to blow away the smoke. Tom O'Connor graduate student English In 1973 1 was a senior in high school. When the news of the Roe vs. Wade decision by the Supreme Court was announced, I admit, 1 felt a bit of sup port for the decision. After all, don't we have to do something about controlling the population, and if someone chooses not to raise a child they shouldn't have to, I thought. A common argument for abortion has always been that if the child is going to live a life of burden and pov erty, it is better not to be born. In other words, one way of dealing with the poor is to kill their young. Is this what our society has come to? Are we all so involved in providing only for ourselves that we can't take time to help out those in need? If so, I dread to see what the next generation will bring. On the news and some TV series every so often you see an abortion clinic that has been bombed, and the cameraman will usually gaze over the rubble to give the viewers a good idea of what those pro lifers are up to. In no way do I support the destruc tion of private property, nor do I know any pro-life leader that does. But, in all fairness of the issue, why not take the TV camera inside an abortion clinic and show the viewers what they're doing. For instance, they could have the abortionist checking to see if he has all the body parts from the child after using the suction method or the burnt red skin of the child after a saline injection. People might realize what those abortionists are really up to. Since 1973 I have come to realize that if abortion is going to be used as a way of controlling the population, what's to stop the terminating the life of the handicapped or aged because they have a lower quality of life and should make room for the rest of us so we can live a fuller life. As far as the term "unwanted child" goes, it seems to fade by looking through the long lists of couples waiting to adopt. I am for keeping our personal free doms, our right to choose, but with that comes responsibility. The choices should be made before conception; after that there is another life involved. - Don Tvrdy sophomore engineering It is ironic that the 14th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision falls amidst the reflections on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. I watched the archival tapes of King's victories and disappointments aghast at how we, in this free country, treat one another. The abortion-on-demand issue is fundamentally similar to our racist past it is the exploitation of the weak at the will of the strong. The present oppressed sector of our popu lation cannot exercise non-violent protests. Yet our unborn Americans are the victims of violent death by the legal "termination of pregnancy" through decisions made by the one person who could sustain their lives. I do not pre tend to fathom the depths of feeling that must be associated with the deci sion to abort. However, by opening my home to girls with unplanned pregnan cies I have seen the results of that decision in those girls who have sub mitted themselves to abortion: guilt, anxiety, wanting a "replacement" baby, even suicidal tendencies. Once the sanctuary of the womb is violated, the finality of abortion becomes an unre lenting companion. This is a dark con trast to the exhilaration of seeing a new life born. Even in the "hard" cases, there is that sense of accomplishment. 1 wish you could meet my friend. From all that we hear from the pro-choice camp, she would have been a prime candidate for an abortion. She was severely abused as a child and epileptic as a result. She became pregnant as a result of rape and struggled with the decison to keep the baby, which would have posed more than a few difficulties for her because of her condition. She chose life and carried her baby to term. She now has a normal son and continues to fight with living as a single mother. But, there is in her, hope and not despair. I believe that as individuals and as a nation we must begin to put a high priority on the sanctity of life. We must extend this to all people, the handi capped and the aged as well as the unborn. Without this priority, the value of life will continue to degrade. Eutha nasia and infanticide are no longer fut uristic objectives. They are the reality of the present, and their existence steadily erodes the criterion for quality of life. Raun Lohry graduate student agronomy Mistakes do happen. I do not believe a woman should have to sacrifice the rest of her life bcause of one mistake she made. Women should have the right to choose. She should make her decision based on what is best for her. After all, it is her life. We have no right to argue against abortion. We have no right to decide the future of others. Laurie Noel freshman broadcasting Biologically speaking, we know that from the moment of conception, a new human life exists inside the womb. Genetics and embryology prove this beyond doubt. If we can agree on no other basis for making abortion law ("don't impose your morality on me") then let's consider what we do know: The developing baby is a Homo sapien, a member of the human race. He or she is one of us. He or she should be. pro tected from a mother who would impose her morality by taking her unborn baby's life. Leo Kosch sophomore undeclared o