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OPINION
East Oregonian
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
JENNINE PERKINSON
Advertising Director
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
It’s about time
Buying contraception from
pharmacists is a logical move
Safe and accessible birth control
grow up to lead successful lives
is key to a host of gains in maternal
themselves.
and child well-being, economic
Birth control drugs and
advancement for families and
devices aren’t 100 percent safe
nations, and may even lower the
and effective. Efforts to relax the
crime rate.
degree of physician
Starting early
involvement in
next year, laws
managing them
Being able to
signed by Oregon
have long been
obtain a year’s fought off because
Gov. Kate Brown
last week will
of a sincere belief
worth of oral
allow pharmacists
that direct contact
to prescribe oral
contraceptives between healthcare
contraceptives
providers and
from a
and hormonal
patients will help
contraceptive
neighborhood avoid contraception-
patches for a year
related problems.
pharmacy
at a time. Coming
In addition, the
55 years after “the
necessity to visit a
without a
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provider in order to
prescription
available in the
obtain a prescription
U.S., this step
is an opportunity
represents a
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to keep tabs on
something that
reproductive and
substantial
should always
wellness.
savings in time, general
be a woman’s
But on balance,
choice: whether
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hassle and
to go through
ratio has clearly
money.
the life-altering
shifted in favor of
and sometimes
moving this service
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to pharmacists,
of pregnancy and motherhood.
who are themselves highly trained
Living in this time in one of the
professionals capable of counseling
world’s most advanced nations, we
women and directing them to
can scarcely imagine what it was
specialists if more complicated
like here before 1960 — and how
issues arise. Being able to obtain a
it still is in many less-developed
year’s worth of oral contraceptives
nations — with women endlessly
from a neighborhood pharmacy
pregnant, many dying prematurely,
without a prescription represents a
and families with far too many
substantial savings in terms of time,
PRXWKVWRIHHG:HURPDQWLFL]H
hassle and money. This will reduce
childhood and motherhood — in
the odds of unplanned pregnancies
many ways rightly so — but there
during gaps between prescriptions.
isn’t much that can be said in favor
(Women will be required to start
of having eight children and losing
with a three-month supply to see
several of them to illness and
whether there are any adverse
poverty.
reactions before being able to buy
Smaller families and an ability
pills for a year.)
for women to integrate pregnancies
California already has a similar
with their working lives have greatly but somewhat less comprehensive
improved living standards in the
law. Our Washington neighbors,
U.S. and other advanced nations.
who are considering doing the same,
The children who are planned are
should certainly follow Oregon’s
cherished and are more likely to
lead.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher
Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
OTHER VIEWS
Cost of body cameras too much
for Bend-area police
The Bend Bulletin
The Legislature’s new law on body
cameras has Bend and Prineville police
thinking they may have to give them up.
It’s a reasonable decision.
Bend police don’t use body cameras
now, though the department has been
experimenting with
them and considering
adding them.
Prineville police have
been using them.
The new law
adds requirements.
Police must turn
on the cameras
when encountering
any suspect. The
recordings must
be stored. When
recordings are
released to the
public, the faces of
individuals must be
digitally scrambled.
There are arguments to be made for
all those requirements. For instance,
police should not be able to pick and
choose when cameras are turned on.
It makes them vulnerable to claims
that they were purposefully left off to
conceal what happened.
But those new requirements could be
expensive for departments to manage.
Bend Police Chief Jim Porter told us
during the legislative session he was
worried about how many hours it would
take to redact all the faces involved in a
recording. He’d likely have to add a staff
member along with the expense of the
equipment. He wasn’t sure that expense
made sense.
Body cameras can provide valuable
information about incidents. They
may encourage better behavior from
suspects and police. And they can show
a perspective of an
incident that will
almost instantly clear
up some questions.
But we don’t see
them as absolutely
necessary in Bend,
Prineville or elsewhere
in Central Oregon.
Their value must
be weighed against
their cost. It would
of course be helpful
to know how much it
would cost taxpayers
in Bend or Prineville
to have the cameras
and comply with the
law. We haven’t seen estimates of those
additional costs.
Does it make sense to add the
cameras and the staff person in Bend to
blur faces, or would it make sense to add
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downtown?
If there were incident after incident
in Central Oregon in which there were
serious questions raised about the
behavior of police and suspects, that’s
a much different decision than law
enforcement and the public face now.
OTHER VIEWS
Haste, hustle and Scott Walker
I
n the formal announcement of his
Walker’s cart has a way of getting
presidential campaign on Monday,
ahead of Walker’s horse. Only after
Scott Walker mentioned God
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right away, introduced himself as a
year were there reports that he was
preacher’s son and invoked religion
taking extra time to bone up on world
repeatedly, as he has throughout a
affairs. This was supposed to be a
perpetual candidacy that stretches back
comfort to us, but what would really
to his college days, when he told the
be reassuring is a candidate who had
Marquette University yearbook: “I
pursued that mastery already, out of
Frank
really think there’s a reason why God
honest curiosity rather than last-minute
Bruni
put all these political thoughts in my
need.
Comment
head.”
When allies and opponents talk
But what I see in him is the kind
about his strengths, they seem to
of soullessness too common in American
focus not on his passion for governing but
politicians and the kind of careerism that
on his cunning at getting elected. “He’s a
makes American politics such a dreary
sneaky-smart campaigner, they say, a polished
spectacle.
and levelheaded tactician, a master at reading
I see an ambition even more pronounced
crowds,” wrote Kyle Cheney and Daniel
than any ideology. I see an interest in personal Strauss in Politico. “He learned the value of
advancement that eclipses any investment in
ignoring uncomfortable questions, rather than
personal growth.
answering them.”
These are hardly unusual traits in our halls
What an inspiring lesson, and what a
of government. But they’re
window into political
distilled in Walker, the
success today.
governor of Wisconsin.
He tailors his persona to
He’s styling himself
the race at hand. To win his
as a political outsider, but
second term as governor
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of Wisconsin and thus be
not professional history.
able to crow, as he’s doing
While it’s true that he hasn’t
now, about the triumph of a
worked in Washington,
conservative politician “in a
he’s a political lifer, with
blue state,” he played down
a résumé and worldview
his opposition to abortion,
that are almost nothing but
signaled resignation to
politics.
same-sex marriage and
He’s been on one
explicitly supported a
Wisconsin ballot or
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another almost every two years over the last
undocumented immigrants.
quarter-century, and he’s only 47. Before the
But with his current focus on the Iowa
governorship, he was a state assemblyman and caucuses, he no longer supports a path
then a county executive.
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We know from the biographies of him
credentials and has called for a constitutional
so far that he has been absorbed in those
amendment permitting states to outlaw
“political thoughts” since at least the start
same-sex marriage. He even has a newfound
of college, before he could have possibly
affection for ethanol.
developed any fully considered, deeply
His advisers, meanwhile, trumpet his
informed set of beliefs or plan for what to do
authenticity. Authenticity? That’s in tragically
with power.
short supply in the presidential race, a quality
I suspect that we’ll learn, with just a bit
that candidates assert less through coherent
more digging, that he was mulling campaign
records, steadfast positions or self-effacing
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commitments than through what they wear
the neighborhood wading pool, pledging to
(look, Ma, no jacket or necktie!) and even
ease restrictions on squirt guns and usher in a
how they motor around. Walker is scheduled
ban on two-piece bathing suits.
to trundle through Iowa later this week in a
He has drawn barbs for the fact that he left
Winnebago, and of course Hillary Clinton
Marquette before graduating and was many
traveled there from New York in that Scooby
credits shy of a degree. But I know plenty of
van.
people whose intellectual agility and erudition
“I love America,” Walker said in Monday’s
aren’t rooted in the classroom, and his lack of
big speech. That was his opening line and an
a diploma isn’t what’s troubling.
echo of what so many contenders say.
The priorities that conspired in it are.
I trust that they all do love this country. But
He was apparently consumed during his
from the way they pander, shift shapes and
sophomore year by a (failed) bid for student
scheme, I wonder if they love themselves just
body president. According to a story by David a little more.
Ŷ
Fahrenthold in The Washington Post, he was
Frank Bruni, an Op-Ed columnist for The
disengaged from, and cavalier about, the
acquisition of knowledge. And he dropped out New York Times since June 2011, joined the
right around the time he commenced a (failed) New York Times in 1995. Over his years, he
candidacy for the Wisconsin state Senate — in has worn a wide variety of hats, including
chief restaurant critic and Rome bureau chief.
his early 20s.
Walker is a
political lifer,
with a résumé
and worldview
that are almost
nothing but
politics.
New laws
enacted by the
legislature add
requirements.
Those
requirements
could be very
expensive.
Be heard!
Comment online at eastoregonian.com
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