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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 1990)
EDITORIAL Say no to restrictive abortion measures This November. Oregon voters will have a chance to vole on issues that could affect the entire nation. Two measures that could have this national impact are state ballot measures 8 and 10 — the abortion ques tions. In states such as Idaho and Missouri, the whole country watched to see how the stringent pro-life measures would be received. If passed, Measure 8 will prohibit all abortions ex cept to prevent the death of a mother or in cases of re ported rape or incest. This measure should be defeated easily. Oregoni ans stand firmly in the corner of the woman’s right to choose and Oregon voters will once again turn away this attempt to legislate personal moral decisions. However. Measure 10 has a better chance of being approved by Oregon voters. If passed. Measure 10 will require doctors to give twfo days notice to parents before performing an abor tion on a minor. On thr* surface. Measure 10 doesn t look very harmful. In best case scenarios, parents should lake part in one of the most important decisions their child might face. However, the world is not made up of fam ily units resembling the Brady Bunch or the Cosby* There are cases in which it would not Ik* in the child's liest interest for the parents to be informed. The varying family situations arc* not taken into considera tion by Measure 10. Then? are also no legal alternatives provided in Measure 10 for girls wanting to avoid telling their par ents. States that have passed similar parent notification laws, such as Minnesota, have allowed court chal lenges to that notification. Oregon's version would al low no exceptions. Those involved with abusive or incestuous family situations are not the only people who would be left out in the cold by the pro-life legislation. Girls from a “perfect" and communicating family might find it easier to seek illegal, uncontrolled abor tions rather than having to shatter their parent's expec tations. In this respect. Measure 10 would not promote sin cere family communication. The decision to inform others should be made by the person closest to the issue — the woman seeking the abortion. Leave the decision-making to the person who is go ing to be effected by those decisions. Vote no on ballot measures 8 and 10. "UNDERACHIEVER” READ MW LIPS,, DUDE.' Coca-Cola’s apartheid aftertaste remains When divestment from South Africa was a big issue on the University campus a cou ple of years ago, Coca-Cola was targeted as one of the biggest investors in the apartheid system. But a couple of mild concessions by Coca-Cola and the matter is forgotten. Until now. Coca-Cola has reappeared in the EMU Fishbowl It did not win a taste tost with Pepsi nor is it going to cost less. Coca-Cola simply put in a lower bid than Pepsi Members of the Black Student Union at the University haven't forgotten. They ran a taste test last week outside the EMU Fish bowl. Coke in one container, the blood of South African blacks in the other. Drink Coca-Cola and you support the apartheid system. Coca-Cola has sold its individual plants in South Africa to blacks. But it still retains trademark and buttling rights It still gets 80 percent of the profits from the South African Coca-Cola plants. The South African government receives $30 million in taxes from Coca-Cola. South Africa is still the only country on Earth with legalized apartheid. How did Coke find its way back to the campus? A state purchasing agent orders for the whole state of Oregon. The purchasing agent takes the lowest bid. The University Hous ing Director said it is not a political deci sion. It certainly is a political decision. The University supports whatever company it buys from. The University is endorsing Coca-Cola's policy regardless of whether it knows it. It is no excuse to say "the state buys for us." The state purchaser needs sensitivity training and the University must address student concerns before spending its money Students should let University adminis tration know they are worried about what the state higher education system has done, and they should boycott the Coca-Cola prod ucts in the EMU and the residence halls. LETTERS Judgment call Environmentalism is in: chemical corporations, power companies, packagers ami fast food industries are hastily tak mg on that new green protec tive coloration. We even have an "environmental president " In this climate, the Oregon Committee for Recycling was created to defeat Measure t>. the Oregon Recycling Initiative Ami it was inevitable that the No on 4 Committee would send a mailing to all of us "environ mental voters.” signed by the persons who describe them selves as active environmental ists, claiming that shutting down the Trojan Nuclear power plant would damage the envi ronment. If you can't convince, con fuse! And they do. telling us that our impulses to protect the environment by requiring recy clable packaging and by clos ing Trojan is right, but that our vote to do so would tie wrong Apart from taking up the study of ecology, nuclear phys ics and the economics of pack aging and electric power, there are paths out of this confusion One is to note when* the In# money is spent and to ask your self if that is where you want your vote to go Another is to realize that the "expertise" of the agencies hired to defeat the environmental initiatives is dedicated not to the truth, hut to winning Dispensing wis dom is not their business Do you want Trojan closed until it can lie operated safely and its radioactive wastes can lie safely disposed? Should packaging lie rin yclable or re usable? Trust your judgment! Vote Yes on measures 4 and l>. Kllen Spear Eugene Manifestations ll is the Manifest Sanctuary law that protects people in mental hospitals from politi cians forcing themselves on tfn? otherwise defenseless mental patient There has never been a docu mented cast; where a politician has been caught inside a men tal hospital trying to tell the pa tient what he or she has to do. or moving that patient out of thi' hospital. If a politician was caught in side the hospital without noti fying the patients' families, no matter what the case, the politi cian does not belong there I’cte Kena Graduate student Corrections must be multiplied by a factor of to to account for those who are silent. These facts become even more frightening when one re alizes that the aggressors in these crimes cannot be pinned down into one particular cate gory of men They include men of all races, creeds, ages and backgrounds When one broad ens the definition of violence against women to include atti tudes and verbal abuse, all women should be counted among the oppressed. Avoiding situations that are potentially dangerous (in any sense) and voicing one's objec tions to those situations is ev eryone's inherent right, includ ing Dole's. We praise Dole for her aware ness of the precariousness of women's lives and for her de sire to deal with it in her own way. We do not think her ap proach is at all out of propor tion. How fat? Until Kunando Long's and K.J Christiano's responses to Enna Dole's letter {Ol)E, Oct. 16) show exactly how far wom en have to go before they can possess the simple right of per sonal freedom. The incidents that she de scribes were all too familiar to myself and other women. Long and Christiano. have you ever had to worry' that you wouldn't be able to walk safely home at 11:30 p.m., or been followed too closely by a woman on the street? No! Then maybe you should rethink. Why do you as sume. lxing, that she was ad dressing all men and not just those who don't respect wom en's rights? And why Christiano, do you assume that women invite harassment7 Yours is the most harmful argu ment I've heard. You both missed the point so completely that I have to ask if you truly don't understand what women often have to face — or W you just don’t want to. Trivial diatribe In response to Knnandn lamg «)»/•.. Oct 1H); Your contemptuous little dia tribe trivialized women's prob lems and twisted Knna Dole's remarks into a predictably pa triarchal self-detense. We feel that her concerns am appropriate when one consid ers the dangers that women face in their lives. A large ma jority of women have been or will lie sexually harassed and or abused in their life times: at least every three min utes a woman is beaten, and ev ery' five minutes a woman is ra|H»d These statistics reflect only the reported cases. Some ex perts believe that the numbers Marina Wolf Russian Andrea Henry Inti. Studies Karen Smith International Studies Tuesday, October 23. 1990
