Commentary
Friday, January 27, 1995 Page 5
Abortion can save lives, too
Does a fetus have a soul?
Last Sunday at a family gather
ing my sister-in-law and I debated
that question.
We both have three children,
comfortable homes, supportive
families, strong personalities. But
that’s where our affinities end.
Sue is ardently pro-life — as
bitingly sure and clear in her belief
as a sunny January morning. And I
am the family radical: liberal,
vegetarian and an unwavering pro
choice feminist.
We’d been discussing animals
— eating them, wearing them,
caring for them — and Sue won
dered aloud how I could speculate
that my dog had a soul and yet
advocate abortion.
I paused. How do I explain the
validity of my own convictions to
someone who holds divergent
religious and moral beliefs?
How do I explain the time in my
life seven years ago that turned my
convictions about reproductive
choice from an abstract, ideological
construct into a belief firmly
grounded in the conviction that
abortion could save my life?
For me, the abortion debate does
not revolve around the possible
existence of a soul in a 3-day old
fetus or a 3-month old fetus, but
instead it has at its heart the lives
and souls of 34-year-old women
and 11-year-old girls.
The debate goes beyond the
rhetoric about innocence, murder
and lost potential to singular
women living individual lives.
My life. In January of 1988, at
age 27 during the winter of my
discontent (as I disquietly remem
ber it now), I was ready to die. I
had everything to live for — I was
young, happily married with three
beautiful children — the youngest
still a breast-feeding baby.
Cindy Lange-Kubick
Still I faced each endless day
that frigid winter willing it to end.
And yet when night fell I was
gripped with terror, because I knew
that after spending hours quietly
waiting for sleep to overtake me, I
would once again find myself fully
awake at 4 a.m.
I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat,
couldn’t think straight. Worst of all
I couldn’t feel —somewhere in the
far reaches of my mind, I knew I
loved my children, my husband,
myself— but I was numb, spirit
less, blue.
And I didn’t know why.
A fuzzy, heavy, wooden quality
colored and covered my entire
being. Depression cannot be fully
explained in mere words — stupor,
melancholy, sorrow — it has to be
felt.
Sometimes as I lay awake
listening to the house and the night
and the quiet breathing of my
children, I thought about suicide.
And I was afraid.
And sometimes when I thought
about ending my life, I thought
about my children dying. And I was
terrified.
Someplace in the foggy recesses
of my mind I thought that maybe,
just possibly, I might harm them.
And I loved them more than my
own life.
So I wanted to die.
Eventually I began to sleep.
Then I began to eat and to cry and
to feel my feelings.
And by spring I felt alive again.
My children made me angry
again and I yelled at them and I
was glad.
When I touched my baby’s
smooth cheeks and held him to my
breast, I knew not just intellectually
that I loved him; I felt it.
But I knew with every fiber of
my being that I could not have
another child. Not then, maybe not
ever. I just could not risk feeling
that pain again.
I’ll never actually know the
hows and whys of my depression. I
don’t know if it was a glitch in my
brain chemistry, a variation of the
postpartum blues or simply a
cosmic curveball thrown into the
mix of my life.
Last Sunday was the 22nd
anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade
decision that legalized abortion in
this country. It was a day of both
mourning and celebration.
For me, this January marks a
seven-year passage from those cold,
dark days in the winter of 1988 —
and I finally feel free.
Eventually I answered my sister
in-law’s question.
“Yes,” I said, “I believe a fetus
has a soul.”
And I do, too. And so do the
thousands of women who choose
abortion.
And no one — not my sister-in
law, my husband, my minister and
certainly not the government of the
United States of America — is
going to tell me which soul matters
most.
Lange-Kubick is a senior news
editorial and sociology major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist
Masochists love infomercials
me ioiiowmg is a paid
columnist’s message. The views
presented do not necessarily reflect
those of the Daily Nebraskan, its
management or staff.
If you are a night person, as I
am, then the first paragraph may
sound hauntingly familiar to you. If
it doesn’t ring any bells for you,
then let me give you the scenario.
A similar disclaimer will be
shown on the television for a few
seconds, and then the screen fades
to black. Suddenly, the lights shine
1000 highly charged bright colors,
exciting music blares; then from
behind a cloud, Vanna White
appears.
“Hello, I’m Vanna White, tee
hee,” she’ll beam, “and I have some
great news for all of you losers out
there with ugly teeth ...”
The infomercial has begun.
For a half-hour, someone with
the acting talent of Vanna White
will try to sell you a product or a
service. Thirty minutes of nothing
but a commercial is a very painful
thing to see, but like a bad highway
accident, we watch.
To those of you who haven’t
seen an infomercial, I commend
you on your good taste, and I’ll
draw a comparison for you.
Let’s say that watching a
normal, 30-second commercial
featuring, say, the Pillsbury
Doughboy is equivalent to getting
shot in the head. An infomercial
would then be the death of 1000
deaths, where the victim is dismem
bered little by little, starting with
the pinky finger.
Why do I watch? I love pain.
No, only kidding. I watch
because there are nights when I
don’t want to read or write or play
solitaire, and I find infomercials
strangely sedating.
I also find that if I watch them
Todd Elwood
for their entertainment value, I
discover that they rarely have any.
But the infomercials try very hard,
and it’s amusing to see that.
They are usually disguised as
something that would actually hold
a person’s interest. They have
formats akin to talk shows and
news programs and other real TV
formats, but with a twist. That
being they never break for a
commercial; they are the commer
cials.
One begins by showing an
impressive news set. An anchor
type person will begin the “news”
broadcast, “Today, in some other
country — What’s this?”
Then, he’ll say in great surprise,
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve just
been handed an important news
flash. We go now to our conve
niently set-up camera in the lab of
Dr. Ripinoff.”
A scholarly-looking, doctor-type
will then announce to the world
that he has just invented a break
through product that will solve the
world’s problems by forever ridding
the underside of your toilet bowl of
that annoying mildew stain. And lo
and behold, he even has an 800
number to call for ordering the
miracle product.
Another favorite of the
infomercial is the talk show. Here a
mediocre actor from a ’70s TV
show will be interviewed by the
creator of a very fine product.
“So, Mr. Washdup, what have
you been doing since leaving
‘Police Woman’?” this inventor
will ask.
“Well, I’m currently suing
M&M’s, but what I really want to
talk about is your product. Your
synthetic ‘Hair For Cool Guys’ is
great! And although I haven’t
landed a role since ’78, I’ll look
great in court!”
There are even award shows for
infomercials. I didn’t believe it at
first, but it’s true.
The National Infomercial
Marketing Association hands out
awards yearly to the top show in a
variety of categories.
Some of the categpries and
winners: Bruce Jenner for Best
Nose-Job; LaToya Jackson for Best
Leaching Off a Family Name; a
surprise tie going to Susan Powter
and Tony Little for Best Acting
Like a Freakish Hamster on Uppers
During a Workout Video; and
Dionne Warwick came away with
the award for Best Actress in the
“C’mon, You’ve Got To Be
Kidding” category.
But the highlight of the evening
had to be the lifetime-achievement
award. It was a tear-jerking
moment that honored Ron Popeil.
The very appreciative and emo
tional Popeil immediately offered to
spray the head of every bald man in
the room for almost nothing.
The infomercials obviously
work, though, because they remain
on the air. I’m not sure who is
actually buying this stuff, but I’ll
find out. Right now, though, I think
I’ll call my psychic friend and get
some use out of my home beef-jerky
maker.
Elwood is a senior English and sociology
major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
Democrats mistake
agonizing for action
Cal Thomas
The Democratic Party held its
winter meeting last week. While
it wasn’t exactly a wake, some ol
the participants seemed to be
whistling past the cemetery.
In the midst of the usual
political posturing, there was this
bolt of light from an unlikely
source: “Democrats’ addiction to
other people’s misery does not
solve their problems or substitute
for national policy. While we
must acknowledge the pain of the
impoverished, we must also
require them to take charge of
their own lives. We must find
ways to reward those who work
or get into a program for self
sufficiency.”
Comments from Newt
Gingrich? A quotation from the
“Contract With America”? A
speech by Jack Kemp? None of
the above. These are the words of
liberal Democratic Sen. Barbara
Mikulski of Maryland in a
Washington Post column on Jan.
22. •
Mikulski continued, “We
must ensure that welfare rules do
not destroy the family. Demo
crats should stand up for the
family, and that includes men.
We need to end the ‘get the man
out of the house’ rule, which has
pushed men out of the house so a
family can qualify for public
benefits. Shortsighted intentions
have created rules that dismantle
families, emasculate men and
deny their children a full-time
father. Being a dad is more than
writing a child-support check.”
Could a meeting of Republi
can and Democratic minds
emerge from such wisdom?
There’s more. Writing in the
same newspaper two days earlier,
columnist Stephen Rosenfeld
commented on documents
released from the archives of the
Soviet Union and chronicled in a
PBS series. What these docu
ments reveal leads Rosenfeld to
“confirm the approach long
attributed to the political and
academic right. The Soviet
Union, being driven by an
illegitimate leadership’s hostile
ideology, was in fact evil,
repressive and expansionist. It
was not just the misperceived,
put-upon and often unoffending
conventional state depicted by
the political and academic left.”
So, then, Ronald Reagan was
correct when he referred to the
old Soviet Union as an “evil
empire,” despite the hoots and
hollers that came from political,
academic and journalistic
liberals.
As welcome as these admis
sions by Sen. Mikulski and
columnist Rosenfeld are, it
should be noted that they come
long after most other people had
already reached these conclu
sions. Still, if someone of
Mikulski’s unchallenged liberal
credentials can now see that the
welfare state has failed — and
that Democrats who cling to it
are not holding on to a life raft
but to a sinking ship — this
could produce a basis for
negotiations with the new
congressional majority that
might promote the legitimate
welfare of those who have been
on the dole as well, as those who
have been paying for it. The
acknowledgment of evil empires
could also help give direction to
a nonexistent U.S. foreign policy.
Democrats have two choices.
They can pretend, as Vice
President A1 Gore did at the
Democratic National Committee
meeting, that everything is fine.
“We will re-elect the man who
through the strength of his
convictions has given the United
States of America new strength,”
said Gore. To what convictions is
he referring?
Or, Democrats can listen to
Barbara Mikulski, who wrote,
“We have too often substituted
agonizing for action, and it has
paralyzed us.”
The choice for Democrats is
irrelevance and loss of the White
House in 1996, or getting back in
the game by admitting mistakes
and promoting government
programs that help people take
responsibility for their lives, not
encourage them to sit back and
wait for handouts.
The election of liberal Sen.
Christopher Dodd to head the
Democratic National Committee
and the strong possibility that the
equally liberal White House aide
Harold Ickes will direct the
president’s re-election campaign
are troubling indications that the
party will remain addicted to its
failed policies and won’t hear the
pleadings of Mikulski and
Rosenfeld. They are shining a
light to lead the dispirited
Democrats out of the deep, dark
hole they have dug for them
selves.
(C) 1995 Los Angeles Times Syndicate
'UBERM ELITES’ RETAKING OF PUBLIC TELEVISION
Mike Luckovlch