The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 6, Ed. 1 Friday, October 4, 1996 Page: 3 of 20
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Opinion
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Y. OCTOBeR 4. 1996
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Rep
It makes no sense to me
How can far-right Republicans
be at once anti-choice when it comes
to reproductive rights and against
funding and support for
family planning projects?
ITiis lapse in logic is a
product of the right-wing
myth machine.
They want to demon-
ize family planning as of-
fensive to traditional fam-
ily values by linking it to
casual sex and the"sexual
revolution" of the 1960s,
suggesting that family
planning means abortion.
It does not. Some family
planning organizations do offer abor-
tion counseling and referrals if a
womart opts for the procedure, and
all of them believe in reproductive
rights, but their chief mission is to
provide adequate, low-cost methods
of contraception.
Statistics indicate that 3.1 million
unintended pregnancies are pre-
vented each year by the'efforts of
'the National Family Planning Pro-
gram. One million three .hundred
Brandon
Pike
DEMOCRATS
thousand o _ ^
would have resulted in unwanted
births, 40.000 miscarriages and 1.4
million abortions. Anti-choicers
shouldn't be picketing
Planned Parenthood; they
should be thanking them.
Ralph Reed claims that
the Christian Coalition
seeks to affect "family-
friendly public policy." But
try getting anti-choice Re
puWwmns like Steve Stock-
man or pitil Gramm to vote
to fund government-sup-
ported family planning
programs. Good luck.
x However, for every fed-
eral dollar spent on family planning,
$4.40 is saved in future government
medical and social services, totaling
$1.8 billion dollars in savings annu-
ally. Furthermore, a study by J.D.
Forest showed that without govern-
ment funding, we would have to deal
with an additional 1.2 million unin-
tended pregnancies and 516,000 ad
ditional abortions. The impact on
future goverypnent expenditures for
social and health services should be
your
Affirmative action provokes
more tension by its injustice
When the government pro-
motes policies giving an unfair-ad
vantage to one group of society, it
accordingly disadvantages those
outside the group. Such
policies of preferential
treatment comprise the
racLai and sexual discri mi
nation present in affirma-
tive action.
Although institutions
should not accept candi-
dates on the basis of race,
neither should they reject
a qualified candidate be-
cause of racevgender, etc.
The affirmative action in
practice today has betrayed the in-
tention of its founders.
Affirmative action began as a pro-
gram to give opportunities to other-
wise qualified minorities who were
denied education, jobs, etc. solely
because of their race or gender.
Society cannot overlook the contin-
ued government-sanctioned dis-
crimination that has destroyed our
once-vaunted level playing field.
Any program that
treats groups in
society differently will
generate animosity
from other groups,
and the affirmative
action programs ef
today exacerbate
racial tensions for
those reasons.
w illy
Hwang
COLUMNIST
lions as the National Basketball As-
sociation, yet society has not suf-
fered tumultuous consequences as
a result.
The reason no one
complains about this is it
doesn't make a difference.
Basketballfans watch bas-
ketball for the purpose of
entertainment, but it the
quality of entertainment
were to degrade because
of the players'lack of skill,
the market for basketball
would contract immedi-
ately. Furthermore, the
Associated Press has yet
to report any instances ol sick people
refusing medical treatment from a
doctor outside their racial or gen-
der group. Although some may find
that fact difficult to believe, merit
has proven itself time and time again.
People seeking medical treatment
will find the best provider of that
treatment based on reputation with-
out regard to race.
Affirmative action instills the
ap-
Contrary to the claims of most
affirmative action proponents, how-
ever, the dismantlement of affirma-
tive action does not in any way com
promise the efficacy of anti-discrimi-
nation laws. The objective of having
these anti-discrimination laws is to
provide an equal opportunity for all,
not preferential treatment for some.
These anti-discrimination laws must
apply equally to everyone.
As a society we must not leave
out the disadvantaged among us
merely because they 'belting to the
"wrong" racial group. Some affirma-
tive action proponents claim that
underrepresentation of certain
groups will have disastrous results,
On the contrary. Anglo-Ameri
cans (whites), Asian-Americans
(Orientals, Indians, Pacific Island
propriateness of preferential treat-
ment into the national psyche. Hie
intrinsic racial and sexual discrimi-
natory practices of affirmative ac-
tion cause resentment in the same
manner as the unjustified racism
and sexism of the past.
The government instituted affir-
mative action programs to rectify
past discriminatory actions, but life
nation must advance beyond the
mistakes of the past to a more propi-
tious future. Meant as a method for
qualified minorities to obtain access
to previously hostile institutions, af-
firmative action has evolved — with
the abetment of the liberal estab-
lishment — into a policy which
causes institutions to sacrifice stan-
dards in die pursuit of diversity.
Any program that treats groups
in society differently will generate
animosity from other groups, and
the affirmative action programs of
today exacerbate racial tensions for
those reasons, lit this enlightened
era of equality, we must not permit
politically correct racism to stymie
our society's advancement toward
equal opportunity and treatment by
the law.
If society rewards diligence, edu-
cation and skills, people will realize
that those factors open the door to
success. People have no more con-
trol over their race and gender than
the TV weatherman has over the
weather. A truly level playing field
accounts only for factors that people
can exercise control and responsi-
bility over: their record and their
performance.
ers, etc.) and Hispanic-Americans
<M<«ican^ .uiacan&,.Puerta... Ricans
and Latin Americans) remain Willy Hwang is a Will Rtcfi College
underrepresented in such organiza- freshman
obvious,
Yet saving federal dollars by
implementing a proactive family
planning agenda will never pass
muster with the Christian Coalition's
congressional lackeys.
Statistics indicate
that 3.1 million
unintended
pregnancies are •
prevented each year
by the efforts of the
National Family
Planning Program.
In fact. Christian Righters in the
104th Congress battled earlier this
year to eliminate funding for family
planning services provided in the
Title X family planning program of
the Public Health Service Act, which,
I should note, was signed into law by
abortion.)
lican extremists launched
a crusade to dilute or fully eradicate
programs which provide access to
low-cost contraception for low-in-
come women.
These women are precisely the
ones that Republicans are constantly
blaming for the burgeoning welfare
system — accusing them of having
baby after baby ih order to draw-
bigger welfare checks
How can conservatives both is
sue scathing philippics against im-
moral, impoverished and irrespon-
sible single mothers, arid refuse to
provide them with accessible and
affordable preventive measures? If
we increase expenditures on contra-
ceptive services directed to low-in-
come women and make sure that
these women know how and where
to obtain birth-control, the birth rate
in that community will shrink. Suc-
cess by the extremist wing of the
Republican Party in dismantling fain
'v. > i« PH
ily planning provisions would only
exacerbate the current crisis.
if we truly want to reduce th
alarming number of teenage pre*
nancies, decrease the number
abortions and reduce the amount of
tax dollars spent on medical and
social services to unwed mothers
and their unwanted children, we
must advance thecause and incrpse
the scope of family planning efforts
by funding government programs
such as Title X and by supporting
the National Family Planning Pro-
gram and the Planned Parenthood
Federation ol America, •
Family planning, contrary to the
espousalsthe Christian Right
myth-makers, does nothing to erode
family values in America. Fewer
women would need to exercise their
right to choose if contraception and
family planning services were aflt >rd
able, accessible and acceptable in
the United States.
It makes perfect sense
Brandon I'ike is a member of Rice
Young Democrats and a Wtess
College senior
'Jill
i
Disturbing Islamic holy site fans fire
The events in Israel over
the past week and a half have
compelled me to comment on
what may be a landmark in Mid-
east relations, for bet-
ter or worse, and tie in
nicely with my com-
ments last week.
For those of you who
have been without news
for the last 10 days or
so, and I know there are
a lot of you, here is a
basic primer of events
began as isolated rock throwing
escalated into gun battles with au-
tomatic weapons as Israeli police
and Palestinian police exchanged
fire. Fighting raged from
the West Bank to the
Gaza Strip, with Israel fi-
nally moving tanks into
West Bank and employ-
ing Cobra gunships in
Gaza to spray Palestin-
ian forces with large-cali-
ber gunfire.
When the dust had
Jeffrey
Last Tuesday, Benja- zlnsmeister settled on Friday, at least
min Netanyahu's Likud columnist 36 Palestinians and Ills-
Party government in Is-
rael made the decision to open up
a tourist tunnel under the Temple
Mount in Jerusalem. The tunnel,
which dates back to ancient days,
was renovated and excavated to.
in the government's words, facili-
tate tourism in the area.
However harmless Netanyahu
mqy have portrayed the develop-
ment, it runs under one of the
holiest sites of the Islamic reli-
gion, and is opening at a time
when Arab tensions in East Jerusa-
lem are running high due to Is-
raeli reluctance to fulfill provisions
of the Camp David accords.
Not surprisingly, the Palestin-
ian reaction to such a move was
one of shock and anger. Immedi-
ately afterward, Yasser Arafat
c^l ledforpeacefu I demonstration s
and strikes to protest the move.
Israeli riot police were of course
present and, in a nutshell, what
raelis were dead and hun-
dreds were wounded, On Satur-
day, violence flared again as after
religious services a few Palestin-
ian youths threw rocks at Israeli
troops near Al-Aqsa Mosque, with
some falling near the Western
"Wailing" Wall. The troops then
advanced on the dispersing wor-
shippers, firing both rubber and
live ammunition. The troops al-
leged that a large number of youths
had attacked, but recanted in light
of eyewitness accounts.
Riots again raged, but there was
little blood this time as Palestinian
police and Israeli troops effectively
restrained crowds rather than ex-
change gunfire. But by Sunday,
over 65 were left dead. Such events
are disturbing, to say the least, as
they underscore two important
points: that the Palestinian gov-
ernment has less control over its
citizens that it ought, and that the
Likud government in Israel is pur-
suing a hard-line and extremely
dangerous course of actions that
border on illogical.
'Arafat's calls for protests were
understandable, yet he had to
have known that gathering
crowds together at such a time
could lead to violence. Further
more, the inability of Palestinian
police to prevent the mob from
taking on a mind of its own and
die exchanges with Israeli troops
indicate that the situation as-
sumed its own unplanned dynam-
ics and defied control.
One cannot help but wonder if
further symbolic agreements can
go anywhere, or if the real ac-
tions so abhorred by Netanyahu,
like the promised withdrawal
from Hebron, will have to occur
to bring stability. It appears that
Arafat realizes this — the offer of
a conciliatory meeting replete
with handshaking and the like by
Netanyahu was discarded in fa-
vor of proceeding with talks in
volving not only Israel and Pales
tine, but also Egypt, France and
the United States. Netanyahu is
not so ignorant to know such a
move could trigger such a crisis.
His lack of concern for Arab
sentiments about the tunnel sug
gests that there were other mo-
tives behind the tunnel opening
- ' SEE ISRAEL, PAGE 4
Jeffrey Zinsmeister is a Will Rice
College freshman!„
sit
■ -.f
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Beard, Marty & Rao, Vivek. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 6, Ed. 1 Friday, October 4, 1996, newspaper, October 4, 1996; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246548/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.