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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 22, 2004)
TO THE EDITOR YES ON 30 There is a war going on in Oregon be- tween the right-wing tax cutters and the rest of us who want to live in a decent state. The war is being fought with ballots, not bullets, but people have already died. More will die if Measure 30 fails and essential services are cut. There are no safe sidelines in this war. Everyone has to decide which side they’re on. You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem. To volunteer to help pass Measure 30, call 968-8965 or email elaine@stand.org. Lynn Porter Eugene DeFazio, Wyden, Kulongoski and Bush are hoping they can cash in on the political fa- vors and donations from these wealthy timber company owners, micro-tyrants, and their underlings by proposing and supporting the Biscuit post-fire logging in the wild Siskiyou. However, if the opposition generated from their constituents, especially in the Willamette Valley, becomes a political bur- den, they would likely back off. Our task then is to turn their support of this corrupt give- away, the Biscuit salvage logging project, into a political liability they can’t ignore. Shannon Wilson Eugene CLASS OR NO CLASS? CORRUPTION FUELS BISCUIT LOGGING I grew up in the Siskiyous of southwest Oregon, just three miles from the Biscuit fire perimeter, and I can show anyone the past clear-cuts and salvaged logged areas there that haven’t grown back, except for manzani- tia and snowbrush, in 30 years. The hard, clay-like soils and climate extremes there cannot support intensive tree farming tech- niques used here in western Oregon. So when the U.S. Forest Service and George Bush propose to log out more than 500 million board feet of tree fiber (more than 75,000 log trucks) over a 30,000 acre area from the wildest and harshest Siskiyous in the name of “Forest Health,” I know that reasoning is the farthest thing from the truth. In reality, it is a corrupt giveaway to wealthy timber company owners and micro-bureau- crats in Douglas, Josephine, Coos, and Jackson counties. Yayyyyy! For a while there I was afraid the Prude Contingent among us EW readers was going to let me down. When I read Sally Sheklow’s great and funny 12/18 “Living Out” column, I said, “Ohh, the thought police will really be pissed! Imagine! ... daring to mention oral sex!!!!” So, bless her heart, Michelle Eldridge’s letter has sustained my faith in the omnipresence of our PC anti-free- expression friends. Sorry you think Sheklow has no class, Michelle; I find her witty, intel- ligent and very classy. Also, you missed a good chance to extend the usual complaint about “suggestive-adult-ads-that-must-be- banned-from-EW.” Sheklow’s photo with that come-hither smile is at LEAST as provocative as the photos inside EW’s last page. (Pssst: Sally, if you ever expand your orientations to include equal opportunity for straight males, I say: anytime, anywhere...) Tom Warren Pleasant Hill HAVE COMPASSION Would someone please explain to me why Oregon’s economic woes should fall prima- rily on the backs of those least able to shoul- der the fallout? And please, no explanations citing “trickle down” economics. I have seen how that doesn’t work. Our public school children, seniors and the disabled need our unequivocal support. Hard times are hardest on those with no safety net. A small tax is bet- ter for our state than huge cuts to essential programs. And what about public safety? We will all suffer from lack of funds to Oregon’s crucial safety services, i.e. fire, police, etc. Defeat of Measure 30 will have devastat- ing repercussions on us all. Be selfish and compassionate. Vote YES on 30. Let’s re- claim Oregon’s humanity. Michelle Holman Deadwood BY KELLIE SHOEMAKER Fighting the War at Home Women’s reproductive rights need defending. N o one expected George W. Bush to protect a woman’s right to choose — he’s been explicitly anti-choice since 1994. You would think, however, that those who oppose a woman’s right to choose abortion would at least be committed to providing the kind of sexual health information and contraceptive access that can re- duce the need for abortion in the first place. But inexplicably, the administration and its anti-choice allies in Congress are also actively attacking the family planning and med- ically accurate sexual health education programs that are proven ways to reduce the number of abortions and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. This coordinated assault on women’s rights, which Planned Parenthood has docu- mented in the report, George W. Bush’s War on Women: A Pernicious Web (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/library/facts/030114_waronwomen.html), began back in December 2000 and continues to gather steam. Ultimately, anti-choice politi- cians hope to stack U.S. courts with justices who will help them overturn Roe v. Wade — but they’re not waiting for that day to begin undermining the right to choose. Legislative infringements on women’s rights are an integral part of the anti-choice approach. In early November, President Bush signed the first federal legislation banning abortion in the history of the United States. Without a health exception for women who need abortions, the bill is clearly unconstitutional, and is being fought vigorously in the courts by Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice groups. In the 2003 legislative session in Oregon, for their part, Right to Life and anti-choice hardliner legislators introduced numerous bills to impose restrictions on access to safe and legal abortion services. Many state legislators across the country continue to pass bills that limit women’s choices little by little, hemming in our freedoms bit by bit. W aiting periods before abortions impose a huge burden on women who must travel to access abortion services, while state mandated biased information laws force women to view or listen to anti-choice propaganda before they are 4 JANUARY 22, 2004 allowed to exercise their right to choose. Mandatory parental notification laws, present on many state books, often don’t take the complexities of real families into ac- count, and force adolescent girls who may be the victims of abuse or incest or neglect to testify in front of a judge if they cannot gain parental consent for an abortion. By target- ing abortion providers and imposing restrictive regulations on the kinds of facilities and providers who can perform abortions, anti-choice hardliners en- sure that even women who are eligible to obtain an abortion will have a hard time find- ing a place that can perform the procedure. Of course, some women, and all men, will never need an abortion. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t suffer when anti-choice forces are allowed to succeed. The attacks on reproductive rights and health encompass contraception and sexual health educa- tion as well. Anti-choice ideologues who testified at FDA advisory panel hearings against making emergency contraception (EC) available over the counter presented ide- ologically based opinions about pregnancy as if they were medical fact. Their state- ments were the clearest proof yet that anti-choice forces are trying to limit access to contraception as well. In Oregon, anti-choice hardliners have worked to oppose contra- ceptive equity repeatedly over the last decade. And if they can’t keep contraception from being available, they’ll make sure that as few people as possible know how to use it. Funding for abstinence-only education is on the rise, even though there is simply no proof that these programs work. There is, of course, ample evidence that medically accurate, age-appropriate comprehensive sexual health education can keep teens healthier and safer. And a majority of American par- ents want their children to receive just that kind of education. But anti-choice hardliners don’t. And their desire to withhold information from the public exposes one of their most deeply held, and most insulting, beliefs: that women cannot be trusted to make their own sexual health decisions. This fundamental assump- tion illustrates the larger, dangerous, misogynistic agenda at work. Women do not need the government to make medical and moral decisions for them. Anti-choice lawmakers want the public to believe that it is appropriate for them to im- pose their narrow ideological vision on American society, eliminating reproductive choice and taking away women’s agency. But women are autonomous human beings, and we deserve the rights, respect, and freedom that accompany that responsibility. Kellie Shoemaker is the Public Affairs Co-Director of Planned Parenthood Health Services of Southwestern Oregon. The 31st anniversary of Roe v. Wade will be celebrated at 6 pm, Jan. 22 at the Wild Duck.
