North Carolina Newspapers

s 6The Daily Tar HeelMonday, ADril 25, 1983 I allg 91st year of editorial freedom Kerry DeRochi. Editor Alison Davis, Managing Editor LISA PULLEN, University Editor CHRISTINE MANUEL, State and National Editor MTKEDeSISTTI, Sports Editor BlLlRlEDY. News Editor Nov. 3, again "Justice is in a state of comatose in North Carolina and across the na tion. I urge you to prosecute the Klansmen and the Nazis in North Carolina for violation of the rights of the victims killed Nov. 3." The Rev. Joseph Lowery in a 1980 telegram to President Jimmy Carter On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted six Ku Klux Klansmen and three American Nazi Party members in connection with the 1979 shooting deaths of five Communist Workers Party members in Greensboro. The jury's indictments 29 months after Lowery's telegram represent an attempt to answer the public outcry, over the 1980 not-guilty verdict and to answer the questions still remaining from the 23-week long trial. The indictments stem from a 1979 "Death to the Klan" march and rally that was organized by Communists and disrupted by a nine-car caravan of Klansmen and Nazis. Five communists were killed, seven others were injured. What followed was the longest trial in N.C. history. It was called a "sham" from the start. CWP members refused to testify, saying they already knew what the outcome would be. The jury that was selected from a list of 2,250 included a former Greensboro policeman and a foreman who had fled the communist regime of Fidel Castro. There were no blacks. Only one person had more than a high school education. More importantly, though, was the trial testimony itself which seemed to revolve around a videotape showing Klansmen and Nazis unloading guns from their cars and rushing into the crowd of demonstrators. As some have argued, the jury seemed to pay more attention to the federal testimony saying the klansmen had shot in self defense. They became caught in trying to distinguish between "hostile" and "inhostile" bullets a questionable basis, for a verdict. After sue days of deliberations, the jury found the Klansmen and Nazis innocent of first-degree murder, of second-degree murder, of voluntary manslaughter and of felonious rioting. Jury foreman Octavio Mandulay said in a press conference after the trial that the jury did not condone the actions of the three groups. Yet it was argued that the jury's decision set the groups above the law; though five people were killed in the riot, no one was held responsible In reaction, people across the state and nation held silent vigils and loud marches. They carried signs saying "And justice for all?" and "The Frankenstein of racism must be destroyed." Here, about 800 students marched on South Building in a Rally for Justice where faculty members, students and administrators spoke out against the verdict. It's the same names that were called out in that Greensboro courtroom three years ago that are now listed in the new indictments, this time on the federal level. Now, the Klansmen and Nazis face charges that they had violated trie civil rights of the participants in the parade, resulting in death and bodily injury. In addition, a key witness in the 1980 trial faces charges of perjury. No one can say that the new indictments will or should mean a new verdict, that those once found innocent will or should be found guilty of other charges. But the grand jury's indictments serve to uphold this coun try's judicial system by pursuing answers to the unresolved questions. They carry with them the satisfaction of an investigation thoroughly com pleted and a hope that justice will be done. TH E Daily Crossword by Elaine D. 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LEDFORD, Photography Editor 51 Victorian skirt Hern 53 Prisoner's walk 57 Cinnamon bark 61 Minor 62 Unimagina tive 64 Utile look 65 Actress Stevens 63 Desidera tlon 67 Actual being 63 Not a soul 63 Numerical ending 13 Has debts 18 Card game 22 Sagacious 24 Disserta tions 23 Rower 27 Earof grain 23 Eye pro tectors 30 Put on a pedestal 31 Palindromic girl's name 33 Sulks 34 Trivial 33 Made a lap 37 Golf peg 41 Goes on a spree 43 Tricky dealing 43 Gross receipts 43 Ancient kingdom 50 Kind of sale 52 Pigment 53 Velezof the sllents 54 Greek Mars 55 Wool: pref . 53 Hence . 53 Certain 53 WUIIam Ralph CO Yemen port 63 Decimal base DOWN 1 Hoover and Ross 2 Primary source 3 about (nearly) 4 Remorseful 5 Change 6 Roman household god 7 Backbreaker 8 Scientific Item 9 Small fry 10 TUtlng 11 Fantasy fanciers 12 Incline Inc. 428S3 - The life within By MARK LANGSTON The editorial "A Modest Proposal" (DTH, April 21) is quite representative of typical pro-choice arguments. The DTH is guilty of doing precisely what its editorial con demns others for ignoring the issue of human rights. The article starts and concludes discussing the federal government's interference in freedom of one's choice, saying that no law should legislate what a person does with his or her own body. The middle of the article, however, is another story. In stead of logically and rationally pursuing this idea, the DTH chooses to bring in as many red herrings as space would allow. Gone is intelligent discussion of human rights, replaced by the mere stating of some health statistics and sentence or two about the pro-life move ment's "muddling" the issue with debate over life begin ning at conception, along with the reminder that a preg nant woman has only one option other than abortion. We all know what that is. But forget the middle part; if the DTH wants talk on human rights, then here it comes. I firmly believe that LETTERS A bortion editorial exhibits disturbing illogic To the editor: The editorial "A Modest ProposaT (DTHt April 21) on the proposed national amendment against legal abortion exhibits a disturbing level of argumentative sloppi ness and illogic. You write: "Debate has centered around whether life begins at conception, an argument the pro-life movement has used to muddle the issue. They choose to ignore the central issue of whether a woman has a right to control her own body " Certainly some who support the pro-life view do ignore what you term the "central issue." And in fail ing to address this viewpoint, they do give the impression that they haven't even con sidered it. In your editorial statement, however, you have ignored the pro-life view as com pletely as the most dogmatic pro-lifer could have ignored yours. Without any supporting arguments whatever, you sim ply dismiss the concern with when life , begins, labeling pro-lifers as those who "muddle the issue." Such labeling hardly shows intelligent consideration of the pro life stance, nor is it in any way an effective refutation of their position. Labeling sel dom refutes any argument. Many pro-lifers present arguments that ' are much more balanced than yours. They consider and affirm your point that a per son has the right to control his or her own body, but they say that this right must be limited when it could lead to the avoidable destruction of human life. Along with the woman's rights, they are concerned with those of the fetus. Their arguments are based on the assumption, of course, that the fetus is at some point a living human being. How can you totally neglect con fronting this assumption? Your handling of statistics supporting your point of view seems equally poor. You cite the statistic that 39 women died from illegal abortions in 1972 as compared with no reported deaths of women from il legal abortions in 1979. You use this com parison in an attempt to support the idea that "legalized abortion has led to fewer deaths among women who have abortions." Your comparison shows nothing of the sort. Of course there would be fewer deaths from illegal abortions in 1979, when any person could get a legal abortion. Your comparison might have some validity if you found statistics show ing the total women's mortality rate for all abortions, legal and illegal, for the two years. You never mentioned the number of fetuses that have been eliminated in legalized abortions. Statistical Abstracts of the U.S., 1981 reports that 1,409,600 legal abortions occurred in the United States in 1978. The number of legal abortions from 1973 to 1978 grew at an average rate of 133,000 per year. Should any thinking per son, pro-abortion or not, carelessly dismiss A bit narrow-minded To the editor: I am writing in response to the column by Ken Mingis ("Better dead than red?" DTH, April 22). While I share his horror of war, I would like to make two com ments. The first is that, as originally posed, the WQDR question had no reference to na tionalities. I think that it was 'wrong for Mingis to assume narrow-mindedly that "patriotism" and "the Star-Spangled Banner" would be what people would fight for and that the enemy was the Russian Bear, the Soviet Union, rather than, as the question said, "communism." Mingis ought to admit the possibility that the five or six respondents who tentatively chose nuclear war over communism were not choosing "America right or I wrong" but "free society." The second point concerns his state ment, "Communism is not the worst thing; death is." I am not ready to argue that communism is worse than death. Millions of people honestly believe that it is good, virtuous and right; its cousin socialism has been found, in northern Europe particularly, to be quite compati Give us To the editor: In response to Sheryl Moore's letter, (4Give staff help instead of complaining," DTH, April 18), I am in sulted. When describing the organization of photo sessions' for the yearbook she states, "And every year it's like pulling teeth." As a first-year dental student, I legally, if not morally, a woman has the right to do what ever she wishes with her own body. So does any human being. That's not the issue. The real issue, which the DTH so conveniently avoids in its words on human rights, is whether it is within a woman's rights to abort the child she carries. It is not within those rights, for a very simple reason. All human freedoms carry the proviso "so long as the person does not interfere in die rights of others." My right to swing my arm stops at the reader's nose. A preg nant woman's right to do with her body as she chooses therefore stops whenever it interferes with the right of the life inside her. One cannot deny an unborn child the distinction of a separate entity, regardless of one's opinion of the morality of killing it. So it becomes a question of the unborn child's rights, not of the mother's freedom of choice. Assuming the woman was not raped, no one forced her to become preg nant. There are risks in doing anything, even sex. Since we know that an unborn child has everything it needs to develop into what we recognize as human, how can we not bestow upon it the very least of all human rights, that of survival? As a human entity, regardless of the state of development, does it not deserve the basic right to live? Of course it can't vote, but doesn't the mother have a respon sibility to at least allow the child to be born alive? TO the thought that these fetuses might have the status of human beings? You end by affirming that the statistics in favor of your case are "staggering," but the statistics you provide are few and in conclusive, and you apparently expect the reader to accept on faith that the rest of your impressive numbers exist somewhere. And why did you select the title "A Modest Proposal" for your pro-abortion stance? Are you not aware that Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is a bitterly satirical proposal that the babies of Ireland be eaten? There is a grim irony in your strange title selection. Your lack of thought here is consistent with the rest of the editorial, however. I am bothered when I see one-sided, slapdash arguments in the "Letters to the Editor," but such narrowness in the edi torial opinion of a major college news paper is more disturbing. You are respon sible for presenting your readers with a more incisive interpretation of events. The pro-life view deserves more careful con sideration. Wendell Jones Chapel Hill sTo the editor: ' The editorial "A Modest Proposal" (DTH, April 21) accused the pro-life movement of muddling the abortion issue by centering debate around the issue of when life begins. It is obvious that the DTH, in saying that the central issue-is whether a woman has the right to control her own body, is the one that has really muddled the issue. I would hope that no one would say that parents have the right to kill a three-year-old because she inconveniences them. That would surely be murder. No one would suggest that we kill abused children in order to solve the problem of child abuse. So if a fetus is a person two months after conception, why should we allow her to be murdered for the convenience of her mother? I fail to see the difference. " You and I may have an honest dif ference of opinion oh whether the fetus is really a legal person, but we cannot reasonably disagree on whether, if she is a legal person, her mother has a right to kill her without good reason. Rape (a case in which the mother did not voluntarily make it possible for the new person to come into the world) may be one reasonable excuse ; for abortion. A mother's life being put in to serious danger by a full-term pregnancy may be another good reason. As I said, we may have an honest dif ference . of opinion about when per sonhood begins. I can respect that. But if personhood begins at conception, our ble with free societies; and in Poland we can see the potential for a modified com munism which we would be happy to sup port. However, I do argue that death is not the worse thing imaginable. The romantic phrase "fate worse than death" is literally accurate, I believe, under certain circum stances. Would I rather die than own slaves? . . . than live under a Nazi regime? ... than participate in the death mutilizationmedical experimenta tion on or sterilization of racially deter mined "undesirables?" Hopefully, I could effectively oppose such things without dy ing. But if I was not willing to die if need ed, my resistance would be half-hearted and half-effective, and any adequately totalitarian regime could easily ignore me For me, communism is not worse than death. Bat I can sympathize with those who think so, who think that communism removes everything worth living for. And it should not be assumed that those who think so are all patriotically bigoted Americans. Rachel Applegate Craige a break can competently state that "pulling" (we call it extracting) teeth can be performed with a minimum amount of pain with modern anesthetics. Come on; give us dentists a break. Clark Elliot Craige THE EDITOR society can no longer condone wholesale murder. The woman takes a chance on "dramatically affecting the rest of her. life" when she volunteers to have sexual intercourse. , Chip Younce Law Student To the editor: This letter is in response to the editorial "A Modest Proposal" (DTH, April 21). Your whole editorial focuses on the im proved health of women since the legaliza tion of abortion in 1973, but you ignore the fact that since that time at least, 10. million unborn children have been killed. It angers me that people can get so worked up about the women that have died from illegal abortions, and at the same time refuse to acknowledge that every day babies are being killed. How can you say that debate about whether life begins at conception "muddles" the issue? That is the issue! If that fetus is a human being, then aborting it is the taking of an inno cent life. That is something to get worked up about. You say a woman has the right to make her own decision concerning her body, a decision which might dramatically affect the rest of her life. But what of the baby inside of her? Has he no rights in a deci sion which will dramatically affect the rest of his life also, a decision which might deprive him of the rest of his life? People only deny that a fetus is a human being in order to justify disposing of it as an unwanted object. But common sense tells us that it is a living human being life begets life and humans beget humans. A human fetus cannot develop into any thing but a human. Who are we to choose who may live and who will die? Rebecca Rush Whitehead To the editor: This letter is in response to the editorial "A Modest Proposal" (DTH, April 21). In the article you state that the amendment to reverse the 1973 legalization of abortion places a "woman's right" on the line. In the opening paragraph you miss the point of the whole abortion issue. The real ques tion is,"Do I or does any other person have the right to kill another human be Jng?" In 1857, in the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court decided that a black per Death of a By TIM CROTHERS "We'll be in touch." Now I consider myself fairly well-versed in the language of the "runaround," but if I was a little shaky before, I've got the old "Don't call us, we'll call you" routine down perfectly now. My exper tise has come from exposure to The Daily Tar Heel and the dreaded box found on the back page of every paper. Anyone who's ever submitted some thing to the DTH knows this box, it's the one that says the newspaper "wel comes . . . contributions of columns," etc. Well, this certainly gives no guarantees, but it sure is a kindly little message and I fell for it. On Jan. 26 1 contributed a "welcom ed" column to the DTH. The other day I picked up my unpublished column and thanked them for nothing; nobody said "You're welcome." That I knew. Before I start sounding like a martyr, I want to explain that the following . highly edited version of my two-month attempt to get a column printed is done simply with the hope that nobody will make the same mistakes I did. I originally submitted my column on a Wednesday, and the editor, who seemed quite satisfied with it, said that it probably wouldn't be printed until the next week. This came as no disap . pointment to me, and I waited. After reading the next week's worth of papers and finding nothing by me, I returned to the DTH office and spoke with a different back-page editor. My column, which seemed to have been lost, was found in a bin that included columns from the late '70s. I was told it was now necessary to make a small change and then resubmit. Upon my I am sorry about the women who die in illegal abortion attempts, but what about the tens of millions of children who die from legal abortions? I can't sympathize with someone suffering injury from trying to kill another. And perhaps abortion has a lower mortality rate for women than full-term delivery; what about the 100 percent mor tality rate for the children? Why don't they count? Why do the DTH and other prp-choicers feel that a separate, albeit dependent, living entity with every human feature except age has no human rights? If they can shrug off an unborn child's most crucial right, just for the woman's "freedom of choice" (which she exercised in taking the risk of becoming pregnant), how do they define a right at all? Are they not condoning murder simply because it is convenient and the victim cannot complain? . No federal law should legislate a person's freedom of choice. But no person's freedom of choice includes the right to kill another. Just because the procedure is surgical and the victim helpless does not make it any less murder. Mark Langston is a sophomore business major from Greensboro. son was not a legal person, and because of this, blacks continued to be killed and mistreated for decades. We all know that black people are just as much human beings as everyone else and have basic rights just like any other person. At the time of this decision much was said on both sides of the issue, but the Supreme Court's decision did not negate the truth of the issue a black person is a : human being, deserving rights to life, , liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Today there is an issue that is amazingly similar to the slavery issue. It is abortion. I would like to stand up to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. The truth is that abortion is not a woman's right because the life that is taken is not her own. As a matter of fact, her . blood and the baby's blood never even mix. Regardless of what the Supreme Court says, that growing "thing" in the womb is very much alive and a human be ing, and therefore deserves basic human rights. , There was never another person like that one aborted and there will never be another again. Everything that a person will ever be is resident within the fertilized egg the only thing ever added will be nutrition and oxygen. The heartbeat of an unborn baby begins between 18 and 25 days. Electrical , brainwaves have been recorded as early as 40 days. All of the baby's body systems, are present by eight weeks. At 10 weeks the ; baby's feet are perfectly formed with a unique footprint. Ask doctors who do second- and third trimester abortions (which are quite com mon) if those babies are human beings. Ask nurses (even those at NCMH) who see aborted babies come out alive and dropped in a bucket to starve or suffocate in their own or their mother's life blood, if those are real lives in there. People cry out to save the whales, the ' grass and the Earth. In America it's against the law to destroy the egg of a baldeagle. A hunter in the woods would never shoot unless he were absolutely sure that what he sees is not a man, but a deer. We know that it's human life in the womb, but we continue to kill. No, it was not any woman's or man's right to kill another human being. The law statistics, nor any amount of rationaliza tions will ever justify murder. The blood of millions of aborted babies in this coun try (an average of 1 .5 million a year in the United States) cries out for justice. Tracey St. Pierre Chapel Hill column return I was told that the column was OK but that the back page would be very busy in the next few weeks. As I left, I'll admit to a twinge of skepticism about their promise to "do their best." In the next couple of weeks, I read and enjoyed back pages full of candidates' platforms and later the farewell address of the former DTH editor, which sig nalled the end of the line for me and my old buddies at the edit desk. With the new staff came a new hope and I re submitted the column solely out of stubbornness and principle, but the result was the same. T was originally promised it would be printed. This ' came almost as a joke to me by then, and upon my final trip to the office, I was told by an editor who had never seen my column before that it was "no longer relevant." No kidding. Despite this setback, my literary endeavors continue, inspired by the dream that I could someday be one of those elite few successful writers who can look back fondly on that first col umn ignored by the college newspaper. More likely I'll be one of the countless millions whose brilliance never quite surpassed that first masterpiece. But no matter what happens, I would certainly have expected more from the DTH. As a loyal subscriber to the paper whose old issues strewn across my floor act as wall-to-wall carpeting, I would have hoped my column would not have to stand the test of time. While the former staff found time to exchange deserved pats on the back and the new regime finds space to complain about their lack of funds, I believe that each staff member of the student newspaper has to muster a little more respect for the individual student. Tim Crothers is a sophomore English major from New Canaan, Conn.