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Wednesday, February 23, 2005
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In my opinion
Bret Furtwangler | Graphic artist
Fight for reproductive rights
When the United States guarantees
rights for some but denies rights to
others based on the mere lucky
chance of their being born on U.S.
soil, the hypocrisy breeds an emotion
deeper than hatred. Rights should not
be conditional on a person popping
out of a womb in the proper place at
the proper time.
One particularly heinous double
standard is the Bush administration’s
continued enforcement of the Mexico
City policy, more popularly known as
the “global gag rule.” First imple
mented by President Reagan, the
global gag rule is the Republicans’ at
tempt to force their morality on the is
sue of abortion onto other nations.
We already have laws against federal
money going to fund actual abortions
or information about abortions (thank
you very much, Jesse Helms). The
global gag rule offers one more slap
against women. Not only does the
United States Agency for International
Development not fund family plan
ning, it also doesn’t fund non-govern
mental organizations that talk about
family planning. Bush’s executive order
forbids funding NGOs that encourage
“a foreign government to legalize or
make available abortion... (or) to con
tinue the legality of abortion. ”
The chill on free speech and free
practice has been extensive. The Unit
ed States is the largest contributor
abroad, especially in the area of repro
ductive planning where USAID funds
40 percent of total donations. In other
words, the Bush administration is pay
ing for more condoms than even its
amorous French counterparts. Unfortu
nately, the direct result of the gag rule
has been slashes in the budgets and
services of anyone providing reproduc
tive aid, meaning endless obstructions
for women who seek abortions.
Contraceptive care is also affected by
the gag rule, because not only do NGOs
JENNIFER MCBRIDE
QUASHING DISSENT
lose funding if they refuse to give up
the right to discuss family planning,
they also lose their supplies of U.S.-do
nated condoms and birth control; 16
countries have lost all their contracep
tive supplies, resulting in unplanned
births and the spread of AIDS.
The irony is that we have no idea
whether the global gag rule has been
successful in reducing abortions be
cause NGOs are so afraid to lose their
funding that they’ve stopped collecting
information about the subject altogeth
er. In the few nations where accurate
logs are kept, as in Peru, the number of
abortions has actually increased since
the global gag rule was implemented.
Lack of reliable, unbiased informa
tion hinders governments that are run
by mostly upper-class men who don’t
face consequences first hand. Support
of anachronistic policies means that the
United States is complicit in the deaths
of thousands. At least one-third of abor
tions are illicit, and those 20 million
abortions are very unsafe. Every seven
minutes a woman dies because of a
hazardous operation. When women
are not killed by their choices, they are
jailed for them. That the United States
silences those who would speak out
against this injustice is a travesty.
The global gag rule also furthers
elitism. Rich women will always be
able to seek family-planning services
either by traveling to other nations or
navigating legal loopholes with bevies
of hired private advice. The people
who have suffered most under the
global gag rule are the women who
are already marginalized. Rural
women are most likely to die in child
birth, and rural women make up the
majority of the 78,000 women dying
worldwide every year because of un
safe abortions.
Decriminalizing abortion would also
stop the arrest of doctors in areas where
doctors are needed most. When a
physician is not allowed to practice
medicine because he or she chose to
give an abortion, one more doctor
working to prevent the spread of malar
ia, AIDS and other diseases is lost.
For these reasons, nearly 70 percent
of Americans say they support US
AID-funded family-planning efforts,
but President Bush continues to fly in
the face of rational thought to satisfy
his right-wing constituents.
The true injustice is that such a
law could not exist in America.
When previous Republican adminis
trations tried to ban all federal fund
ing to U.S. organizations who used
their own private funds to advocate
for political issues, the Supreme
Court stepped in to safeguard
the First Amendment. Unfortunately,
the same yardstick is not applied
abroad, and freedom of speech is
curtailed in places where honesty is
needed most. The only way to fully
integrate women into political sys
tems that have historically repressed
them is to set up conditions in which
they can share their stories and their
experiences freely. Without NGOs
to create safe zones, these narratives
go unheard, and women continue
to suffer in silence. Above all, rich
politicians spit on them and us
from their pretty ivory towers, up
holding abusive policies through
their ignorance and malice.
jennifermcbride@dailyemerald.com
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■ Editorial
Prioritize
environment
to prevent
more damage
Fluctuations in the global temperature are
normal. Over time, the Earth has passed
through ice ages and warmer periods in a nor
mal progression, but the rapidly accelerated
global-warming trend of recent years is no
natural trend.
Last week scientists at the annual confer
ence of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science announced they had
found striking similarities between the obser
vations recorded at sea and the predicted
indicators of global warming developed by
climatologists.
“The debate is over, at least for rational peo
ple,” said Tim Barnett, a research marine
physicist at Scripps Institution of Oceanogra
phy in La Jolla, Calif, and the study’s co-author.
“And for those who insist that the uncertainties
remain too great, their argument is no longer
tenable. We’ve nailed it.”
This is not some abstract threat to cute sea
mammals and big chunks of ice. Other scien
tists at the conference showed warming could
stifle cleansing summer winds across parts of
the northern United States during the next 50
years and worsen air pollution.
Further warming of the atmosphere, as is
happening now, would block cold fronts that
bring cool, clean air from Canada. The
process would allow stagnant air and ozone
pollution to build up over cities in the North
east and Midwest.
“If this model is correct, global warming
would cause an increase in difficult days for
those affected by ozone pollution, such as peo
ple suffering with respiratory illnesses like asth
ma and those doing physical labor or exercis
ing outdoors,” said Loretta Mickley of Harvard
University’s Division of Engineering and
Applied Sciences.
In the words of Barnett: “The debate is no
longer, ‘Is there a global warming signal?’ The
question is, what are we going to do about it?”
The future of the planet depends on the
public policy of this nation, and the Bush
administration’s inaction and readiness to ig
nore scientific findings have been disturbingly
sweeping.
Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the White
House Council on Environmental Quality,
summed up President Bush’s priorities
succinctly after hearing the news from
the symposium.
“Our position has been the same for a long
time,” he said. “The science of global climate
change is uncertain.”
Last week, 141 nations signed the U.N. Ky
oto Protocol, which is aimed at cutting the pro
duction of gas emissions that fuel global warm
ing. The United States, which produces the
most pollution of any country, was noticeably
absent from the treaty.
This country can no longer afford to stiff-arm
environmental policy. We must demand that
elected officials make the future of our planet
a priority. We won’t need to worry about Social
Security reform or education policy when our
children can’t breathe fresh air. We need to
look at the big picture: Put the earth first.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Jennifer Sudick
Editor in Chief
David Jagernauth
Commentary Editor
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