Opinion
Thursday, September 8, 1994
Page 4
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
JeffZeleny. .Editor. 472-1766
Kara Morrison..Opinion Page Editor
Angie Brunkow. .Managing Editor
Jeffrey Robb. .Associate News Editor
Rainbow Rowell. .Columnist/Associate News Editor
Kiley Christian.Photography Director
Mike Lewis...Copy Desk Chief
James Mehxling.Cartoonist
I M IOKI \\
Right idea
Education key to lowering birthrate
One plan of action coming from the the U.N. population
conference in Cairo, Egypt, this week deserves applause.
Conference members arc identifying the improvement of
women’s rights, opportunities and status as a positive solution to
easing overpopulation.
The long-term results,
conference leaders say, would
include a decrease in the birth
rate and an improvement in
women’s health — not to
mention the benefits of greater
global gender equality.
The logic behind the link
is evident.
The Washington Post
quotes a statement by the State
Department’s Office of Global
Affairs that “Women, who
perform an estimated 60 percent
of the world’s work, own only 1
percent of the world’s land and
Bret Gottshall/DN cam just i o percent of the
world’s income.”
For centuries under these conditions, many women have
attained status by bearing more children. And in cultures where
women were deemed less important, women continued to have
children until sons were born.
Promoting equality would reduce women’s incentive to have
children to attain status and economic security. Advancements in
women’s education also arc directly linked to lower birth rates.
Educated women are less likely to have unwanted pregnancies.
This long-term solution of promoting gender equity promises
to be more effective and less insulting than past U.S. efforts at
casing overpopulation by dropping planeloads of condoms on
developing countries. (In one such instance, the U.S. found 75
percent of the condoms it had donated to Egypt were being used
by young boys as water balloons.)
As education increases and birth rates level, infant mortality
would lessen, and fewer women would die of pregnancy-related
causes.
Timothy Wirth, undersecretary of state for global affairs
summed it up best when he told The Washington Post, “The
education of women stands out in study after study as the most
consistent way to make an impact on reproductive behavior, on
infant mortality, on family health, on individual productivity.
“Again and again, even a little education for women pays
dividends in every recognized index of social progress and
development.”
While the conference is a breakthrough in showing the necessi
ty of gender equality, it is only one of many reasons it must be
achieved.
Kim it »ki w I'm u v
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Li i 11 us io ihi Kmiou
‘Lynch mob’
If I had any doubts about my
opposition to capital punishment,
they were certainly put to rest last
Thursday night. As a life came to a
sudden and gruesome end in the
electric chair, I reflected despondently
on the futility and degradation of the
death penalty.
I was shocked and disoriented by
the stark contrast between the hollow
words of the pro-death penalty crowd
proclaiming their concern for justice
and their dehumanizing behavior that
celebrated a state-sponsored murder
and brutally mocked Mr. Otcy’s
desire to live. We must find a way to
end this barbaric practice before we
all arc consumed in the fire of hate
and vengeance being kindled by the
supporters of this death penally.
We should not be proud of
ourselves for committing such a
cowardly and hateful act of violence,
it was neither civilized nor responsi
ble, neither just nor wise, for us to
collectively decide that another
person deserved to be killed on our
behalf.
Only a weak and decaying society
needs to resort to such a terrible
“solution” as capital punishment
when there are other alternatives
available that don't require us to kill.
Furthermore, we arc arrogant and
foolish to believe that we arc qualified
to judge that another human being is
deserving of death, whether the
decision is made by an individual
perpetrator or an ot society.
Capital punishment is an irratio
nal public policy. It is not an effective
deterrent, it fails to provide any
tangible compensation for wrongdo
ing, and it is not applied equally to
persons committing similar crimes. It
is a bitter irony that many of those
death penalty advocates who most
strongly claim to support the victim
of a murder also deny the inherent
immorality of the act of killing by
treating it as acceptable in the context
of capital punishment. We must call
for the immediate abolition of the
death penalty and the instalment of
effective life imprisonment.
We all have Mr. Oley’s blood on
our hands. We arc collectively guilty
of his murder, premeditated for more
than a decade, and ruthlessly justified
as a state expedient. We are made no
better by his death, and our own
humanity is degraded by this shame
ful effort at retribution.
I don’t know about the rest of the
UNL campus community, but as for
me, I reject the “lynch mob” mentali
ty of those who celebrate an execu
tion. I choose instead to stand among
the sorrowed and shamed who
despair at humanity’s ability to
destroy itself, and I pray that one day
love and kindness may overcome our
need for vengeance against our
brothers and sisters.
Jeremy Vetter
sophomore
philosophy
Abortion
Lon Lyn Arthur recounted a
rather profound experience in her
column (DN, Aug. 30,1994), yet she
appears to have escaped any lasting
effect from it.
As she waited for the results of
that home pregnancy test, she thought
of names — not for the pregnancy, of
course, but for the baby.
She imagined her offspring’s
future. She wondered about his or her
happiness and hair color. She
assessed her ability to parent. In all
this, she recognized the life, the
value, the viability of her unborn
child.
This experience made a self
described “militantly pro-choice”
woman realize that abortion was not
and could not be an option for her.
The mere possibility of pregnancy
clarified the impact of abortion: It
would take the life of her innocent
child, and that is unacceptable.
Yet she remains in favor of
abortion — if not for herself, then at
least for others. Could there possibly
be a difference between her ictus and
that of another woman?
Too many women have been
brainwashed into believing that the
“thing” we carry in our wombs
during the first months of pregnancy
is a meaningless clump of cells. Ms.
Arthur’s experience easily exposes
the fallacy of that argument.
Abortion does not simply end a
pregnancy; it ends a life — a life Ms.
Arthur would have called Kinscr if he ^
was a boy, Michacla if she was a girl.
SheriLynne Hansen
Lincoln
Embarrassed
1 went to the Nebraska State
Penitentiary Thursday night in
support of the death penalty; howev
er, my reasons for support arc not
important to this letter.
When I arrived on the “pro”
capital punishment side, I was so
embarrassed by the behavior. I found
mysclfon the anti-death side within
five minutes. The so-called “college
party” crowd was obnoxious, rude,
ignorant, and in many eases, racist.
These are the kind of people you
don’t want on your side — it truly
hurts the cause more than helps it.
I couldn’t believe some of the stun
that was yelled across to the side
when: there were true feelings being
felt. What does “Go Big Red” have to
do with Harold Otcy or Jane
McManus? And why did people feel
the need to throw things into the
crowd? It’s scary to think that
Lincoln, Nebraska, is full of so many
people with so much hate and
nothing better to do than to purposely
try to hurt other people’s feelings.
In the meantime, the anti-death
side was very somber and did its best
to ignore the abundant stupidity on
the other side. I was very proud of the
anti-death group for peacefully being
able to do what they wen? there to do
by ignoring the ignorance and hate on
the other side. The only act 1 didn’t
like was the burning of the American
flag. If you don’t like America, then
leave — you are free to.
As the Plainsmen (a death penalty
supporters organization) so eloquent
ly pul it in the rules they passed
around, ‘This is America. It is a land
that thrives on freedom and the input
of all of her citizens. Color, creed,
philosophy and gender may differ, but
we arc all American. Let’s remember
to be considerate and respectful of
that fact.”
Karen Klein
sophomore
continuing education
