The Megaphone (Georgetown, Tex.), Vol. 79, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, February 22, 1985 Page: 4 of 8
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instances for us to see the discrepan-
cies in our society and gives us time to
think about them.
I think that our society should feel
this compasssion and empathy that
we observe in the eyes of the Brother.
But we should do more than that. We
should act to resolve the root of the
problem of poverty.
■
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Anna Abraham
ing. Abortion is an emotional issue. I
was reassured of this fact when I
asked my female peers for their views
on abortion.
I was hoping to find an anti-abortion
opinion or two....but I didn’t. What I
did find was a lot of furrowed brows
and a lot of personal concerns: "I
would never do it but I don't feel it is
my place to tell someone else that she
can't;" "I would rather have a
system of safe, legal abortions than a
system where women could be
manipulated and be taken advantage
of if she needed an illegal one;"
"Why bring unwanted children into
the world? Will we eventually
become another India or Ethiopia?"
After hearing these women - whose
opinions I value - I began to let my
own emotions influence my opinion. I
thought about the Reagan Admini-
stration’s cuts in social programs. I
thought about the fact that three out of
Five children in the world today fall
asleep hungry every night. I thought
about being raped and having to ask
permission from the judicial system
to get an abortion.
I am scared to think any further.
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Wesseling, cont.
that we do not want to see these bad
aspects; we do not want to be
reminded of the poverty and extreme
discrepancy between rich and poor
that is so evident in a place like New
York City.
By letting the Brother wander
through the streets, director Sayles
shows us these bad aspects such as
closed-off buildings and poor living on
the street.
But poverty exists not only in New
York City, but in L.A., San Francisco,
Atlanta, Dallas - yes, even in
“prosperous” Austin. It exists all
over the United States and, as a
matter of fact, almost all over the
world. We must face this.
Nevertheless, very few people do
face these harsh realities. If one
examines the American government,
which should give a fair represent-
ation of the American populace, one
finds that the government - and thus,
the people - does not seem to concern
itself too much with the discrepancy
between rich and poor. It seems as if
the common reasoning is that if one
wants to earn money, one can get a
job. If one wants to earn more money,
one can work more. If one does not
have a job, then, obviously, one
doesn’t want to work and thus chooses
to be poor.
The current Administration in D.C.
has implied over and over again that
everyone has the possibility to make
his own choice. Of course, certainly
everyone has the right to make his
own choice. However, the govern-
ment, it seems to me, does not take
into account that the possibility for
some to make their own choice may
not exist because, say, there are no
jobs available for their particular
kind of job skills.
It is largely a result of this
misconception of the American
government that the poor or unem-
ployed cannot rely on government aid
when they need it. Therefore, they
must basically rely on private
organizations and institutions such as
the Salvation Army or a local church
to provide their sustenance.
The people who recognize the need
for aid to the poor often help to
ameliorate the dire cases among the
poor. Nevertheless, their philan-
thropy is not adequate for helping the
masses of impoverished people.
Giving a yearly - even a weekly -
church donation may be helpful, but
most often it is far more effective as
an easy relief for one’s conscience
than it is a real improvement in the
lives of the poor. It gives the
impression that one has really done
one’s best to help the poor while in
fact the problem of inequality
remains unresolved.
Thus, we haven’t solved anything,
we are just coping with it better. We
should go a step further and admit
that many people cannot help that
they are poor or that they have no job.
We should provide the unemployed
and poor with jobs that suit their job
skills. If that is not at all possible, it is
still not their fault and we have to
provide them at least with a fair
amount of sustenance: a reasonable
amount of money with which they can
arrange their own lives rather than
depend on the capriciousness of
individuals or private institutions for
their well-being.
The problem exists as well at the
first-class citizen and does not
deserve the privelege of making
decisions for herself. To make
abortion illegal is to take a step
backward. It would be one more
message to women that they are not
capable of deciding whether or not
they are physically or emotionally
ready to bring a child into the world.
It would tell a woman that her life is
. less valuable to society than is the life
of her pre-existent child.
Chris Carlson points out in his
abortion article that “...moral codes -
like anti-abortion rhetoric - are
impersonal and cold. Their exponents
do not take all of the circumstances
into consideration. And people
generally live more by emotion than
by hard and fast rules.”
Since I so often find myself
attempting to differentiate my pol-
itical beliefs from my emotions I
consider Carlson’s remarks refresh-
—■ Megaphone —
Abraham, cont.
L a
other Pro-Life leaders are in no way
responsible for the escalating vio-
lence in the Pro-Life movement. Who
is responsible? Granted, responsibil-
ity for the bombings of abortion
clinics have been claimed by
’irrational’ individuals, but who is
promoting or at least tacitly approv-
ing these attitudes? Who is provoking
the anger? The bombings may have
been isolated incidents but the arson,
shooting and vandalism of abortion
clinics is not. Doesn’t it seem ironic
that the people at abortion clinics live
and work in fear of Pro-Life violence?
Isn’t it ironic that you never hear of
violence from those who support the
legalization of abortion, those who are
deemed as being anti-life? Certainly
the Pro-Life leaders are provoking -
if not directly supporting - t he anger
of their supporters through their
costly media campaigns and their
bleeding-heartslogans.
The movement which supports the
legalization of abortion has adopted
the label, Pro-Choice. on the premise
that a woman deserves the right to
make decisions about her body. What
many people fail to realize is that
pro-choice includes the the option for
a woman to choose child-birth over -
abortion. I am willing to forego the
labels and their implications for the
basic reason that the slogans become
vacuous when a woman is faced with
the real-life situation of an unwanted
pregnancy.
The very heart of the abortion issue
is not simply what value we as a
society place on human life (as Bass
suggests.) The issue extends to the
political and moral messages that
society sends to women about their
lives and the value of their lives. The
media tells a woman that it is OK to
bring home the bacon, but only if she
still has the energy to fry it up in the
pan and make her man feel like a
man. The business world tells a
woman that her work is not as
monetarily valuable as is a man’s.
The church tells her not to use birth
control and/or have abortions.
All of these messages tell women
- whether they are doing it
intentionally or not - that she is not a
4----------------------
international level. We do not
ameliorate the famine in Ethiopia by
once having an “aid program.” This
is only a short-term solution. Instead,
we should give them aid on a regular
basis so that their problems (under-
production and over-dependence on
first world countries) can be solved.
The old proverb, Give a man a fish
and he will be fed for a day; teach a
man to fish and he will be fed for life"
is definitely valid.
John Sayles gives us reasons to
pause and think. We see, for example,
that the Brother encounters some
people for whom our society does not
provide. We meet a group of men who
live in the ramshackly remains of a
dilapidated building who try to keep
warm by burning rubbish. One sees
compassion and empathy in the eyes
of the Brother when he comes across
this scene
Sayles provides us with these
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The Megaphone (Georgetown, Tex.), Vol. 79, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, February 22, 1985, newspaper, February 22, 1985; Georgetown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1560207/m1/4/: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Southwestern University.