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Bush and Gorbachev move up summit date
WASHINGTON - President Bush
and Soviet President Mikhail Gor
bachev will meet for a superpower
summit in the United States begin
ning May 30, U.S. and Soviet offi
cials said Thursday as both sides re
turned to bargaining on possible arms
control treaties.
White House spokesman Marlin
Fitzwater said several major agree
ments could emerge at the summit,
including a long-sought Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty to limit long-range
nuclear weapons.
But Busn said merely that the
summit would provide “time fora lot
of dialogue and a lot of discussion.”
Fitzwater said the summit - Bush’s
second meeting as president with the
Soviet leader — would be a ‘‘tough
love” encounter, with the crisis in
Lithuania a central topic.
Bush and Gorbachev last met early
in December at the Mediterranean
island of Malta. Since then, pushes
for independence in Lithuania and
other regions of the Soviet Union --
and the Soviet response to them --
have strained superpower relations.
The timing of the summit, earlier
than the late-June schedule originally
envisioned, raised new doubts on
whether all details of an arms pact
could be nailed down in time.
A senior U.S. official, speaking on
the condition of anonymity, said ‘‘it
depends in some part on what we’re
able to do here” in Washington talks
between Secretary of Stale James Baker
III and Soviet Foreign Minister Edu
ard Shevardnadze.
The official said there was a good
chance that major issues could be
resolved by the summit date but
‘‘realistically” the actual treaty-sign
ing might have to wait until later in
the year.
Soviet negotiator Yuri Nazarkin
was even more blunt, saying: ‘‘Tak
ing into account (the summit is) in
seven weeks, it’s impractical, I think,
to expect it (the treaty) is going to be
signed at the summit.”
Simultaneous announcements of
the summit came from the White House
and the Soviet news agency Tass early
Thursday as Baker and Shevardnadze
were holding their second day of
meetings on arms control and other
issues.
“There’s still a lot of work to do,
particularly in light of the fact that the
summit will begin on the 30th,’’ Baker
told reporters. “So we have our work
cut out for us.”
Both the Washington and Moscow
announcements gave the summit dates
as May 30 to June 3.
However, Filzwater said all five
days might not be used. “Itcould turn
out to be a two or three-day summit,
depending on travel schedules,” he
suggested.
U.S. officials were also vague on
whether the meeting would take place
entirely in Washington, or at some
other location as well -- such as the
president’s oceanside home in Ken
nebunkport, Maine.
Gennadi Gerasimov, the Soviet
Foreign Ministry spokesman, told
reporters at the State Department on
Thursday: “It’s going lo be a work
ing visit; no time for sightseeing.”
Just this week, the Bush admini
stration was talking about the last two
weeks in June for the summit. Neither
side on Thursday gave any precise
reason for moving the dates up --
other than citing scheduling difficul
ties.
Gerasimov said Bush had a heavy
schedule in June and that Gorbachev
wanted time to prepare for the meet
ing of the Soviet People’s Congress
in early July.
Standing alongside pop singer
Michael Jackson at a Rose Garden
ceremony honoring the musician. Bush
said he was pleased that the summit
dates had teen set. “Dialogue is
important. And I’m looking forward
to seeing Mr. Gorbachev here,” he
said.
He said of the meetings at the Stale
Department, “Conversations with Mr.
Shevardnadze are going reasonably
well.”
Filzwatcr said that the crisis in
Lithuania would “undoubtedly be an
issue’’ at the summit and that the
president intended to raise it. “If
anything, Lithuania makes the sum
mit even more important,” the spokes
man said.
“I would characterize this summit
more in terms of demonstrating the
kind of tough-love working relation
ship that we were able to develop
with the Soviet Union by virtue of
four or five summits,” Fitzwater said.
Gerasimov, the Soviet spokesman,
indicated that Baker had energeti
cally raised U.S. concerns about the
use of Soviet force in the breakaway
Baltic slate in his sessions with
Shevardnadze. “There was a serious,
hardbal 1 exchange of opinions on this
subject,” Gerasimov told reporters.
Researchers find little evidence
of abortion’s emotional hazards
WASHINGTON - Legal, vol
untary abortion in the first trimes
ter of pregnancy does not threaten
most women’s mental health or
cause them great emotional dis
tress, according to a new study.
Though some women may feel
regret, sadness or guilt, “the weight
of the evidence from scientific
studies indicates that legal abor
tion of an unwanted pregnancy in
the first trimester does not pose a
psychological hazard for most
women,” said the study, to be
published Friday in the journal
Science.
Olivia Gans, director of Ameri
can Victimsof Abortion, called the
study “a manipulation” of data
from earlier studies.
“When you look at these stud
ies, you can twist them any way
you need to to get whatever con
clusion you want,” she said.
The new study was commis
sioned by the American Psycho
A ^
Severe negative
reations qfter abor
tion are rare....
Science magazine study
-1 f -
logical Association, which asked
six experts to examine all current
research and determine if a valid
conclusion could be drawn about
post-abortion psychological effects.
Nancy Adler, a Unversity of
Califomia-San Francisco profes
sor of psychiatry and lead author of
the report, said the panel surveyed
more than 200 studies and found
only “about 19 or 20“ that met
solid scientific standards.
Once those studies were exam
ined, she said, the conclusion “was
really quite clear.”
The APA convened the panel in
1988 after then-Surgeon General
C. Everett Koop reported that stud
ies were inadequate to draw final
conclusions about the effects ol
abortion on women’s mental health.
In the Science report, the au
thors said case studies have shown
that some women do experience
“severe distress... after abortion
and require sympathetic care.”
But for the vast majority of
women who have voluntary abor
tions, “severe negative reactions
are infrequent in the immediate
and short-term aftermath,’ ’ the study
said.
The greatest distress, the study
found, “is likely to be before the
abortion.”
“Severe negative reactions af
ter abortions are rare and can best
be understood in the framework of
coping with a normal life stress,”
the study said.
“I feel comfortable about the
conclusion that there is little psy
chological hazard for women,”
Adler said in a telephone inter
view. But she noted that there is a
need for scientific studies that would
compare the effects of abortion
with that of other stressful events
in life, such as divorce or death of
a family member.
Adler said studies ol the psy
chological effects of a death have
shown that if there is no negative
mental health response within a
few months, them is little likeli
hood that one will develop later.
As a result, she said, “there is
reason to believe that there will be
very little long term effect” from
abortion.
“As a scientist, I really can’t
say anything beyond two years,”
' she said.
“Two years is not enough,”
said Cans, who said she had an
abortion in 1981. “I know many
years later you still have to deal
with emotional debris of that expe
rience.”
She said the effects can show up
five to 10 years later and she dc
scribed them as similar to the post
traumatic stress disorder experi
enced by combat veterans.
Cans' organization is associated
with the Nauonal Right to Life
Committee.
In addition to Adler, the co
authors of the Science study were:
Henry David of the Transitional
Family Research Institute in Be
thesda, Md.; Brenda Major of the
State University of New York,
Buffalo; Susan Roth of Duke Uni
versity, Durham, N.C.; Nancy Russo
of Arizona Slate University, Tempe;
and Gail Wyatt, University of
California, Los Angeles.
Science is the journal of the
American Association for the
Advancement of Science.
Population expert credits rich
for destruction of environment
PITTSBURGH - One American
does 20 to 100 times more damage to
the planet than one person in the
Third World, and one rich American
causes 1,000 times more destruction,
a population expert said Thursday.
“The most serious population
problem in the world is right here in
the United States,’ ’ said Paul Ehrlich,
Stanford University professor of
population studies.
“The most common mispercep
tion of the population problem is that
it’s a problem of poor Indians who
don’t know how to use condoms,’’ he
said. “Actually, the problem in the
world is that there are too many rich
people.”
Ehrlich and other environmental
ists spoke to about 1,200 students,
teachers, garden-club members and
corporate executives at a conference
on solving global environmental prob
lems.
He said the current world popula
tion of 5.3 billion is 1.8 billion more
than in 1968 when he first prophe
sized the problems of overpopulation
in his book ‘ The Population Bomb. ’ ’
He and his wife, Anne Howland
Ehrlich, who co-wrote the current book,
“The Population Explosion,” say this
decade will be the turning point for
global environmental problems.
‘ ‘If we don’t see some real action
in this decade, it will probably be too
late to avert some very serious prob
lems” including inadequate food
production, global warming, species
extinction and deforestation, said Mrs.
Ehrlich, associate director for the
Center for Conservation Biology at
Stanford.
Ehrlich railed against highly de
veloped nations like the United States
that he claims consume too much of
the world’s resources.
‘ ‘The birth of a baby in the United
States is something on the order of 20
to 100 limes more disastrous for the
life support systems of the planet as
the birth of a baby in poor countries
like Bangladesh or Venezuela,” he
said.
Mrs. Erlich said she and her hus
band based the figures on statistics
compiled by the United Nations on
per capita commerical energy con
sumption, an index used by environ
mentalists to measure damage to the
Earth.
‘‘If it’s a (rich) baby, it could be a
thousand limes more,” Erlich said.
‘‘Actually, the problem in the world
is that there is much too many rich
people-It’s not how many people
you have but how those people be
have.”
People who drive gas-guzzling
luxury cars, air-condition their homes
and live from what Ehrlich calls ‘ ‘high
intensity-thc-he II-with-tomorrow
agriculture” do far more environ
mental damage than subsistence farm
ers, he said.
But he was not promoting the idea
that Americans should adopt a peas
ant lifestyle.
In highly affluent Sweden, the
average person uses about 60 percent
as much energy as consumed by the
average American, Ehrlich said.
“We are super consumers and very
unselective, and we’re extraordinar
ily incompetent and sloppy with our
technologies,’’ he said.
Several environmentalists at the
conference echoed Ehrlich’s assess
ments on overpopulation and his claim
the world is running out of time to
find solutions.
“You cannot address the prob
lems soon enough,” said George
Woodwell, president of the Woods
Hole Research Center in Woods Hole,
Mass.
“We are driving the Earth into
impoverishment. We arc living on its
capital,” he said. “We’re eating up
the standing stocks of trees and nutri
ents and soil in the process of feeding
the current 5.3 billion people on Earth.
In doing that, we make the Earth less
capable of supporting people in the
future.”
In terms of global warming, the
United States, with about 5 percent of
the world’s population, produces 25
percent of the world’s output of car
bon dioxide, believed to contribute to
the greenhouse effect, said Peter Raven,
director of the Missouri Botanical
Garden and professor of botany at
Washington University in St. Louis.
Trade negotiators
reach agreement
WASHINGTON - U.S. and Japa
nese negotiators on Thursday an
nounced completion of an unprece
dented agreement pledging to reduce
trade frictions.
The U.S., according to officials,
pledged to increase efforts to im
prove America’s education system
and pointed to proposals the admini
stration is already pushing to cut the
federal budget deficit and to provide
tax credits for increased personal
savings.
The Japanese pledged to deregu
late their complex goods-disuibulion
system and to boost government spend
ing on public works projects, thus
expanding the volume of work on
which American firms could bid.
Nebraskan
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