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Show o Tb o " "" 'j ' r 'en you look into a mimryou (htK)t see your 3r Daily Herald Wednesday, January 22, 1992 The bill requiring judicial review of marriages involving minors under age 6 which passed the Utah House Monday is all about rights, but the question is whose rights? Current Utah law allows 14- - and v s to marry with the consent of one parent. As the only Western state which allows such unions, Utah has become a haven for child marriages. Parents from surrounding states in numbers are bringing here to marry. young The proposed law. which still must pass the Senate, would not make such marriages illegal. Instead, it would require judicial review with the goal of assuring the child is not being coerced into the marriage. Opponents such as Rep. Bill Wright. say the bill would take from away rights parents. ( ffifiUl iPmSH erald rSrjualK (IMMBEI 15-- ear-old- ever-increasi- teen-age- rs Parental rights versus children's rights has always been an emotional and sticky issue. Does the state have the right to force parents to send children to school .' A man named John Singer said '"No" and began one of the saddest and most controversial episodes in Utah history. Do parents have the right to abort children? To abandon them? To abuse them? Do divorced parents have the right to disappear from their children's lives and refuse to contribute to their support? Throughout this country laws have been consistently inconsistent when it comes to rights of children. A common example is the right assumed by schools to search students' lockers and personal property. Adults, meanwhile, enjoy the protection of the law against at least searches without a warrant for the most part. Without getting into the rights and wrongs (fall the other instances where the state gets involved in parental versus children's rights, we'd like to go on record in favor of the bill now before the Senate. Utah is unique in many ways, most of them positive. Our stands on gambling and abortion, for example, correctly reflect the values of many of the state's citizens. But we don't need to become widely known as the state where children can be forced into marriage. Those who would argue that no parent would do such a thing are incredibly naive. Those who would argue that parents have the right to do such a thing make us fear for their children. 9fiL Hditor: Many people in the United States feel that the professional sports players are receiving way too much money for their yearly salary. I feel that in order to begin to solve this problem we need to cut the player's salaries down by lowering the ticket sales and television tecs. An article by David Stern in the June 3, 19V1 issue of Sports Illustrated magazine p. died that the ticket sales and television k' s have risen from the price of $44 million a vcar in 1983-198- 4 to the sales price of I feel $700 million in the years 1990-199that lowering these prices will be the best place to start the lowering of the salaries of the professional plavers. I do think that they should get quite a bit ot money lor the hard, tough seasons that they go through each vear. but I don't think the plavers need to be paid millions and millions of dollars each year. A .cording to Maryland's economic and cohiiiiunitv development department in the February 19. 1985 issue of The Wall Street Journal, the state lost about $36 million in annual spending from the professional football team and its fans when the Baltimore Colts relocated in Indianapolis. I feel that some of the money paid for tickets is needed lor the relocation of sports and other needs, hut some of this money should be used for others needs in our country such as the pav mg off of the national debt and improving the education in the United States. I also feel that people in America are paving wav too much money for sporting events. The prices are rising higher and higher everv vear and I feci that we need to cut down now before all anybody thinks about in sports is the money instead of the real meaing of sports which is to have fun and provide entertainment for others. 1. LinJi MacAthur Orem r u DdCKi. 10 Editor: Both Brent I scncui W ard and Joe Cannon went ""back to school"" to announce their candida-c- v tor the U.S. Senate. That is where the similarity ends. Brent Ward made his formal statement at an elementary school where he introduced students to the political scene. The other candidate planned an "old fashion grassroots kick off" with "free" balloons, hats, banners, sunglasses: including a video with music composed by an limmv winning musician extolling the v irtues of Joe Cannon. That extravagana cost over $ 3.000. America cannot afford another big spender senator to squander hard earned tax dollars. Think when you vote for your next senator. Marian Join Provo 1 Count blessings I recently read a letter by Mrs. Gayle ; VIMIII .,fDI IUU, Ul 1 Control breeding Editor: The estimated world population for 1986 was 5 billion and had a doubling time. It was also estimated that in the year 2 100 the population would be 10 billion with a doubling time. This information was taken from "The Peopling of Planet Earth" by Roy A. Gallant. Population is a big concern. People need food, water and a place to live. As the population grows, the food and water become scarce causing droughts and famines in some areas of the world. In other areas of the world, pollution is due to overpopulation. Population is a world-wid- e problem. Controlling the population, would be a good plan for the future. I think controlled breeding would be the best way to stop the population growth. By this I mean, there is no (specific) amount of offspring you can have, but at the age of 12 they are tested. Only the smartest and the most physically fit would pass the test and the others would be killed. To accomplish this the children would be taken away at birth and raised by other people. If the child passed the test at the age of 12 it would be returned to the parent. If the parents rebelled against this idea and had a child outside of the controlled circumstances they would be killed. Thus controlling the population. Jesse West Orem 40-ye- ar ar They sent flowers Editor: In the earlier years the simple things in life meant something. People were in the depression years and it w as hard to survive. I'll send her flowers, take her for a walk, to a silent movie, or a dance. Ross Nielson from Pleasant Grove, sent his sweetheart. Daisy Newman, a bouquet of daisies. She loved them. He was coach at Lehi. she taught at Pleasant Grove Grade Sch(X)l. Clifton Thayne would send roses to his wife Mirla. She smiled and had a sparkle in her eye. He worked at Cherry Hill Dairy. She was a poet and wrote sacred music. The telephone operator would say, I xlitor: ; m I. III VVIIIIII u . .1111. i. .: i .. llllllJldlllCU Of a parking ticket her daughter had been issued by Provo City. Mrs. Olson, the parking areas in down- town Provo are clearly marked as two-hoones. Your daughter had a responsibility to move htr car before the two hour limit or risk being ticketed. Provo City law applies to everyone who parks dow mown, whether patrons, store owners, or employees. I "number please" on the hand-cranke- d phone. Ross. Clifton, LaMar, and all who ordered flowers replied. "Eight- - O, that's where the flowers grow." It was the florist's motto for many years. If the flower purchaser wasn't certain of c. his bank balance. Knight Bank was, one-o-thre- Richard G. Thayne Provo in milium mim n n n Hhm ..i ij jmmaEBw - m mmwctm.. him itim jjictji 5 m imi m iji imi r mb ' " mmumhii 'irtfiT'iMrm win nnriAm ion norror stones mostly m yth Darin Biniaz, a worked in a downtown office and, like everyone else, had to move my car every two hours. Due to your disgust at paying a $5 parking ticket, I assume you have never lived anywhere but the Provo-Orearea. Perhaps vou are unaware that in most cities the size of Provo your daughter could expect to pay at least $5 on a downtown parking meter, and as much as $ 00 in parking fines. You certainly have a right to show your displeasure by boycotting the downtown area, although it seems a childish display at best. But you might also consider how many things you are taking for granted, and realize how gcxxf you have it herj in Provo. Suzanne Buck Provo ll vanned 3B5&9I9E9I who has ld "art" more profitable and less demanding than productive work, has received a $2,000 grant to create a "sculpture" called "No Choice (No Freed dom)." The work will consist of a discovered that Cut the price mi m ii is m Will Grigg rust-re- and a sealed box containing the names of 100 women who supposedly died as a result of illegal abortions between 1932 and 1989. The "sculpture" will disfigure a tract of public land near Tooele. The names for the monument were provided by Susanne Millsaps of the Utah branch of the National Abortion Rights 40-fo- ot Action League. According to legend, hundreds of thousands of women died at the hands of illegal "back-alley- " abor- tionists before the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. (For this reason it is significant that some of the names provided by Mill-sap- s were those of women who perished after 1973.) Through the NEA grant to Biniaz, the federal government has placed its imprimatur upon the myth. The "back-alle- y bloodletting" that supposedly took place before the Roe decision resides in the realm of historical apocrypha. Marian Faux, an author who has written several books about the abortion e debate, observes that in the era, "women (were) probably better off in the hands of competent but 'illegal' abortionists who did hundreds of the minor surgeries every week than with the family doctor who did one abortion a year." She describes the "image of tens of thousands of women being maimed or killed each year by illegal abortions" as merely "a persua- pre-Ro- AT HOME ' C "Deborah" obtained an abortion in t; 1967 from a physician in the no unusual trauma or complications were reported. "Barbara" recalls an abortion in Philadelphia in the early 1960s. She remembers the callousness of medical professionals who had to certify that the abortion was medically necessary. But she promptly questions her own recollection. She admits that she has "embellished" her story, "but not by much." Barbara's embellishments are quite trivial when compared with the routine mendacimovement. ty of the abortion-right- s Included in Rocawich's roster of Victims is Kathryn Marshall, who was raped in Dallas in 1971. Marshall didn't become pregnant, but Rocawich demands that we consider her a victim because abortion was illegal in 1971 and Marshall insists that she would have sought an illegal abortion. If the stories collected by Rocawich are repmid-wes- gig. 5 M lUlurf $ AND ABROAD - sive piece of propaganda." In a recent essay, Linda Rocawich of The Progressive magazine continues the effort to propagate the approved "reality" about "back-alley- " abortions. She offers testimonies taken from a handful of women who obtained abortions during the pre-Ro- e era and insists that "each individual included here stands in for the thousands of others like her." Rocawich unwittingly continues the work of debunking mythology. A woman Rocawich refers to as "Carol" underwent an abortion in 1966 at the hands of a Cuban doctor. The procedure was performed in "a child's room, just like every little girl always wanted. Pretty white bedspread, frilly curtain, stuffed animals. And it was clean. Really clean." The abortion was competently performed, with no subsequent complications yet Rocawich maintains that "Carol's safe illegal abortion was still a horrifying experience." This is true only in the sense that any abortion could be considered horrify- pro-aborti- resentative of "thousands" of others, where are all the victims? movement is laborUtah's ing to create victims: Utah NOW is intechstructing women in Lake a Salt Grant niques. Bagley, (and abortionist) recently ingynecologist formed In Health magazine that early "is as safe as a legal abortion performed at the same stage of pregnancy." If this is true, another element of tlie "back-alle- y bloodletting" myth is exposed as a falsehood. If it is false, Utah's pro-aborti- self-aborti- self-aborti- movement stands implicated pro-aborti- of culpable indifference regarding the health and safety of women. Labor is stil I una ecided abou t Clinton - WASHINGTON Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton is stumping across America advocating higher wages for the "forgotten middle class." It plays well during a recession and in places where people don't know Clinton's record in Arkansas a state that ranks 48th in wages for manufac-turingjob- s. Plenty of workers in Arkansas don't see the Democratic presidential front runner as their champion at all. It's not simply that the state's workers are at the bottom of the nation's wage heap. It's more that his backing of worker issues has been halfhearted at best. Some labor leaders in Little Rock go so far as to call Clinton a "strike buster." That label was pinned on Clinton after his administration helped Morrilton Plastic Products Co. survive a union strike in 1990. Morrilton rode out the strike with the aid of a $300,000 loan guaranteed by the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission. After that, the United Auto Workers and other labor unions vowed to make it tough for Clinton to get re elected that year. But Clinton bested them. A few days before state labor leaders held their annual convention in September 1990, Clinton announced that his aides had helped broker an agreement between Morrilton Plastics and its employee union. Because of that, Clinton got the support of the state's unions during the election and he won. But that wasn't the end of the story. The labor agreement was not, in reality, sewed up. Morrilton Plastics backed away from the deal and the dispute remains unsettled. Labor feit betrayed when Clinton's people later failed to stand up for the union during -- Letters Address letters to PO Box 717, Provo, UT 84603. 3 employees' union in New York, many labor leaders hope that Clinton's status is only temporary. They would rather back Sen. Tom Harkin, who, unlike Clinton, opposes free trade with Mexico. In language that speaks to the middle class, Harkin says, "When I'm president of the United States, every front-runn- Jack Anderson "..ye 1 UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE double-breastin- workers' compensation, safety, unemployment benefits and other concerns A recent study ranked Arkansas last in deaths. The preventing worker-relate- d ar state scored only 1 1 points out of a possible 1 16 in a study by the National Safe Workplace Institute. Of the 53 deaths last year in Arkansas, 23 of them were not even reported to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Instead of standing up for workers, Clinton has backed a development strategy that lures businesses to Arkansas by advertising a cheap work force and a "right-to-work- " philosophy. No one we talked to recalls Clinton ever demanding that corporate heads compromise with their workers. 'Tve never seen him make industry bend on anything," a veteran labor attorney in Little Rock told our associate Jim Lynch. In Washington, the headquarters of the AFL-CI- O is keeping an eye on Clinton. Despite a recent endorsement by a public job-relat- union-bus- t- America will know that ing employer the working people of America have a friend in the White House!" Arkansas is a small state run by a few big companies, the heads of which are very tight with Clinton. But his rise to the top of the Democratic heap "has led most labor leaders to muzzle their complaints. Labor traditionally backs the Democrat no matter who it is. Clinton has tried to distance himself from labor's liberal agenda, but during a recession, the labor vote in a federal investigation of the alleged breach of the contract. Clinton recently threw another bucket of gasoline on the coals when he appointed Morrilton Plastics' lead attorney to the state Ethics Commission. The story is vintage Clinton, according to labor attorneys in Arkansas. They admit he has helped expand businesses in Arkansas during his 10 years in office. But they say he has done little if anything for wages, blue-coll- scab-hirin- g, g, er can be very important . Those who know Clinton tell us that he may have some success convincing voters that he is labor's best hope. He can fish concise labor statistics out of his keen memory, and he knows how to use that information to tell people what they want to hear. In Arkansas, Clinton's critics among the labor unions are running for cover. The chief Bill Becker has nrn-- , state AFL-CIbasted Clinton in the past. Less than two years ago, Becker's organization said that Clinton had "deceived us with broken promises of support ... tricked us on taxes and, by his actions, Gov. Clinton has foK feited the support and endorsement of men and women of Arkansas."' Now Becker will only say. "We've had O g our differences." Labor lawyers in Little Rock will talk about Clinton, but they don't want to be quoted by name. They've seen too much of the governor they call "Slick Willy" to rule out the possibility that he may become the 42nd president of the United Slates.. |
