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Show THE UNIVERS1TY JOURNAL• SOCJ'nlEllN UTAH UNlffRSITY • WEDNtSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1996 OPINION RUSSELL KENNEDY NATHENTOFF COMMENTARY COMMENTARY I I I Now for a look at the more liberal side of U.S. politics Abortion still a question of human life There has always been a part of me who established the College Democrats Chapter deeply wants t o be a jo urnalist. I canno t here a t SUU that is affilia t ed with the quite place m y finge r o n it but at best National Organization. Many will consider guess, I would say it has a lot to do with thi s a co lumn devot e d en tirely to the orga nic function o f media in our dem ocratic soapboxes, Let me first clarify this notion. I understand that starting with count ry. The "press " as we tend t o label it for the next column there will als o ru n an short , is a marvelous thing. I believe it to opposing article by an individual with let's be the heart of demo cracy. Suprem e Court just say, "oppo sing views. '' Justice Louis Brandies, an ardent defender To me this column will be about issues of the press once said, " The function of the and society's problems, needs and how best press is very high. It is almost holy. It to go about solving those needs. But it is ought to serve as a forum fo r the people, also not just about problem solving. It is through which the people m ay know freely ab out proposing and putting fo rth ideas what is going on . T o misstate or suppress w hich can not just better us as a society the news is a breach of trust." but as individuals as well. In th is ina ug ura l ............,...,.....,-----------. Howe ver, as a good column, I w o uld like t o Ain ,:a,. frie nd u sually t e lls m e, ta ke t h i s opportunity t o .II "Let's not kid ourselves" I explain to you what I see A am a dem ocrat and damn th is colu mn as and my ~ proud of it too. And one vision for its future. Much t h i n g I a m n ot is you r like the press itself, I UL&}' only or "token" democrat consider t his column a here on campus. There forum . Much of it s are literally hundreds of content will be derived students h er e who share fro m my e v eryda y many of the beliefs of the ass o ciation with my Democratic party in the friends and fellow United Stated today. This students here at Southern column is our voice. I am U t ah. With a twist of not a one-iss ue democrat course. nor a fair weathered one, A little history ab o ut ciL If I talk and other myself. I am a native of democrats talk simply Tooele and Delta, Utah. I about the issues we attend ed Delta High ••• b elieve in and know are School where I gained my ,___ __ _ _..;..._ __ _ ___. rig h t, th en ac k now l -. first and only real knowledge of newspaper edgement and the label of dem ocrat simply an d its operation . I w as a tw o-year staff follows. Which for m e is fin e. m ember for t he aw ard winni ng Del ta High And so each Wednesday, we will " talk." MoDel, th e school's n ewspaper . It is the W e will ta lk a bo ut th e b ud get, th e MoDel where I also began my first colu mn hom eless, t he go vernm en t, s tates rights, entit led, Epics fro m a Madman,a thrown and many o f the o th er things t ha t will together collage of everyday H igh School shape an d defi ne this election year. life in a small t ow n . I am now a junior So it is w ith a sen se o f co m fo rt and Social Scien ce Composite major here at exhilara tion t ha t I ret urn to t h e land of SUU, where I have been having the time of journ alism . In a way, it's li k e com i ng my life for the pas t u ndisclosed number of home ... years. It is no secret that I am a little politically Russell Kennedy is a junior social science involved here at SUU. Last year I copmposit major from Delta, Ut. Recently, speaking at Princeton University on the controversy-thatwill-not-go-away, I tried to indicate to the s tud ents and faculty membets that the fetus is not only human life-an assertion denied by several of the pro-choicers therebut is indeed a human being. A gentle, thoughtful graduate student had great difficulty with the latter claim. And so will some vo t ers confronted by pro-life candidates making that assertion this election year. Much of the electo rat e, will, however, have long since made up their minds about the personhood, if any, of th e fetus. For ins tance, Northwestern University professor Ad o l p h Ree d Jr. s ta t e s unequivocally in the Village Voice, a fortress of pro-choice sen timen t: "A fetus is not a h uman being. It's an organism growing i nside a woman's body, albeit an organism with th e pot ential to become a human being." And as a majority of the Supreme Court stated in Roe v. Wade, potentiality is not enou g h to qualify the fetus for the right to due process, equal protection under th e laws and other saving privileges of being a person un der th e Constitution. The Human Rights Amendmen t, long p roposed in the Rep u blican Party platform and now somewhat dimin is h ed b y presi d ent ia l ca ndida t e Bo b Dole would have placed fetuses under the protection of the Constitution. But that amendment has no more chance of passage, with or without Bob Dole, than a law m andating that all FBI agents, including t he d irect or, take Ame ri ca n Civi l Liberties Union courses in the Bill of Rights. Politics, therefore, will continue to be the primary te r ms of engagement for both sides in the abortion wars. There is, however, a sm all augu ry that t he combatan ts could begin to speak to each other with more than epithets. · In a remarkable move toward not only civility but also empathy, Naomi Wolf, an influential feminist pro-choicer, has written in The New Republic: " Many prochoice advocates developed a language to assert that the fetus lSn't a person, and this, over the years, has developed into a lexicon of dehumanization .... How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real?" Or, as Barbara Newman, a fe m i n ist pro-lifer, has sai d, "Euphemism kills." '""t 1s no Bwr~.. that I am little politicwJ~., involved here at SUU. Last year I established fhe College Democrats h uapfer ere at SUU. , Still the students' paper; send letters The University Journal, has among its goals to provide news-campus, local, national and mternat10 ial-to SUUans Also, we are designed to provide a forum for all member of the campus community to expn.:ss fodmgs about topics of interest or concern. The only requirement for a letter to the editor is that the letter be respon sibly written; no libelous or malicious material will be accepted. Letters must be typed and rnclude the author's name and phone number The phone number will not be printed and the Journal will not publish any anonymous letters. In addition to the letters to the editor, we also offer an 'Access' column for those of you who want to express more lengthy opinions. So take a few moments of your tune to tell us what you think. Address such topics of concern as the upcoming presidential elections, the best way to cat a kumquat, or some event worthy of contempt or praise on campus. Drop in sometime with an opinion, and let us know the rest of the campus hasn't disappeared. Because of space limitations, we do reserve the right to edit letters, but we will pnnt all letters that are r.ot libelous. Please deliver letters to our offices. (TH 003) or SUU P.O. Box 9384. Or e-mail us at journal@suu.edu I My own attempts at dialogue in this minefield have brought me to Harvard, Princet o n, Brown, th e C olumbia University Law School and other campuses. I'm invariably invited by a small, hardy group of student pro-lifers who presen t me as a s u rp rising, atypi cal a lly o f theirs , a n o n -r e ligious, c ivil libertarian pro-lifer whose mentors have included Ju s tice William Brennan and Duke Ellington-and decidedly not Ralph Reed. During these talks, I focus on whethe r th e fe tus is indeed huma n . N o t ju s t p o t e nti a ll y human . I cite the beginning of a s tanda rd m ed ica l textboo k, "T he Unb o rn Pa ti ent : P r en ata l D iagnosis and Treatm ent" (W.B. Saunders Co.): "The concept that the fetus is a patient, an individual , whose maladies arc a proper subject for medical treatm e nt a s well as scientific observation is alarmingly modern .. . Only now arc we beg inning to co ns ider the fe tus seriously-medica lly, legally and ethically." And I tell of a comment in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Dr. Joel Hylton in T homasville, N .C. : "Who can say that the fetus is not a l ive and is no t a separate enti ty? Its hu manity also ca n not be questio ned scientifically. It is certainly of no other species. That i t is dependent on another makes i t qua lita tively no di ffere nt fro m co u n tless other h umans o utside t he womb." I also report on i n terv iews I've done with ph ysicians specializing in pren ata l deve lop m ent. T hey poi n t ou t t h at h uman l ife is a continuum from im plantation of a fertilized egg in t he uterine l ining to birth and death. So, in abortion, it is the life of a dev eloping human being that is killed. At whatever stage, he or she is h uma n, not m erely poten tially human. Naomi Wolf quotes form "The Well Baby Book," which is not a pro-life manual· "Knowledge is increasing the awe and respect we have for the unborn bahy and 1s causing us to regard the unborn baby as a real person long before birth." Professor Adolph Reed, however, remains convinced that a fetus is not a human being. He ought to look at a sonogram. He will see one of us. Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights. |