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Vol.88 No. 142 USPS 045360 14 pages
College Station, Texas
WEATHER
FORECAST for FRIDAY:
Continued partly cloudy and
warm with a 30 percent chance of
thundershowers.
HIGH:90 LOW:68
— —
Thursday, April 27,1989
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Pro-choice groups distribute letters at A&M
By Holly Becka
REPORTER
In an effort to show they’re against over
turning the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision
in Roe vs. Wade, which guarantees women
j the right to have an abortion, Texas A&M
campus groups have been distributing pro-
choice form letters to be signed and sent to
U.S. Attorney General Richard L. Thorn
burgh.
The form letter was written by the Amer
ican Civil Liberties Union and says Roe vs.
Wade gives every woman the right to a safe,
legal abortion and affirms the right of pri
vacy. It also says abortion has helped people
raise families when they are most able to
provide love and support for them.
The letter concludes by saying, “I have
no vote on the Supreme Cour t. But since
you represent my interests there, I hope
you will urge the Court not to take away a
fundamental constitutional right.”
Bonnie Harris, president of the A&M
chapter of the National Organization for
Women, said the group received a copy of
the letter two weeks ago from the Texas
Abortion Rights Action League.
“We made about 40 or 50 copies of the
m H H
I don’t necessarily support abortion, but I think the right
should always be there. The marchers on Washington who
carried coathangers — I think that symbolizes the whole reason
why I’m doing it.”
Harris believes the letters are important.
“They’re important because this is an is
sue of whether or not a women should have
a choice to do what she feels she has to do,”
she said. “The state should have no say in
this and Roe v. Wade should not be over
turned because a few vocal people believe
letters and a lot of them have been signed
by NOW members,” Harris, a senior politi
cal science major from Pittsburgh, said.
“The individuals have been mailing them in
on their own.”
— Melissa Cuthbert,
English major
women shouldn’t have a choice.
“The letters are to let him (Thornburgh)
know that there is a majority that feel there
should be a choice. He shouldn’t back any
case like Webster that could put that per
sonal decision in detriment.”
The Supreme Court began hearing argu
ments Wednesday in the Webster case, a
Missouri abortion case which said that the
“life of each human begins at conception.”
The Bush administration hopes the court
will uphold the Webster decision, which
could lead to the overturning or limiting of
the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision.
Harris said the letters may be obtained at
the NOW/Pro-choice Aggies cubicle on the
second floor of the Pavilion.
“We would like to encourage students to
come by and sign the letters because the
hearing of the Missouri abortion case is
(Wednesday) and usually it takes one to two
weeks to make a decision,” she said.
Michelle Touchet, former vice president
of Pro-choice Aggies, said the organization
is encouraging members to fill out a peti
tion that would be sent to members of the
state Legislature if Roe vs. Wade was over
turned.
“The petition says that we do not want
any more legislation restricting abortion
rights,” Touchet, a senior political science
major from Austin, said. “I think the peti
tions would make a difference, because if it
(the decision) goes to the state legislature, I
don’t see how the senators and legislators
could possibly ignore their constituents.
The anti-choice people are so vastly out
numbered, there is no way we can be igno
red.”
She said the petition has at least 200 sig
natures so far and those who are interested
in signing the petition can do so at the
NOW/Pro-choice Aggies cubicle.
Harris said Pro-choice Aggies also are af
filiated with distributing the form letter.
A&M student Melissa Cuthbert, a sopho
more English major from Appleton, Wis.,
said she obtained copies of the pro-choice
letter from a professor.
“I’ve been handing them out on my own
See Abortion/Page 9
Board approves
production of
video yearbook
The Texas A&M Student Publica
tions Board Wednesday voted to
produce a video yearbook for the
1989-90 school year.
I Board Chairman Bob Rogers said
bids will be accepted for outside pro
duction services to complete produc
tion after the yearbook staff puts the
product together.
A similar system is used for
AScM’s print yearbook, The Aggie-
land, Rogers said.
Plans for the 1988-89 yearbook,
“Aggievision,” were scrapped when
the editor, Cheryl Pratt, resigned in
October.
Pratt said she resigned because
the 88-89 staff missed too many
events while trying to complete the
1987-88 yearbook.
The 87-88 yearbook was com
pleted in December 1988, Pratt said.
Distribution of the video began in
January.
The video was scheduled to be
completed by June 1, 1988.
Pratt said she thinks the future of
AdcM’s video yearbook is bright.
“Tm excited about (the future of
Aggievision),” she said.
T think the time has come for
A&M to do something like this. I
think there are enough students who
are excited about it, and this of fers a
great chance for them to work on it.”
Steve Austin, (right), a sophomore political science major from
Arlington, defeats Glenn Kirk, a sophomore recreation and
parks major from Fort Worth, to become the champion of their 1
p.m. fencing class held in the Read Building.
Sitcom queen
Lucille Ball
dies at age 77
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lucille
Ball, the daffy comedian whose ha
rebrained schemes drove her tele
vision family crazy but delighted
viewers for four decades, died
Wednesday of a ruptured abdomi
nal artery. She was 77.
The actress, star of the hugely
popular “I Love Lucy” and related
situation comedies seen in more
than 80 countries, had undergone
major heart surgery April 18.
She had been recovering steadily,
getting out of bed and joking with
the staff, but shortly before dawn
Wednesday, she went into cardiac
arrest due to internal bleeding and
could not be revived, said Cedars-Si-
nai Medical Center spokesman Ron
ald Wise.
She suffered a complete heart
failure at 5 a.m. and 47 minutes of
resuscitation efforts proved fruitless.
Wise said. “There was nothing to in
dicate this would happen,” Wise
said. “The heart itself apparently
was not involved in Miss Ball’s sud
den death.”
During more than six hours of
surgery at Cedars-Sinai, doctors re
placed her aorta and aortic valve. Al
though the replaced portion of Ball’s
aorta did not apparently fail, the en
tire artery was in poor condition
See Lucy/Page 9
Bush backs S&L bill;
notes value of Texas oil
AUSTIN (AP) — President
Bush, returning to his adopted
home state, Wednesday told
Texas legislators he was calling
on Congress to pass a savings and
loan bill and declared that the
United States buys too much im
ported oil.
Speaking to a special joint ses
sion of the Legislature, Bush
highlighted the importance of the
oil industry to the state.
“No matter how diversified
and high-tech Texas becomes, a
strong domestic energy industry
is important to the future of this
state and all of America,” Bush
said.
“1 find it disturbing that nearly
50 percent of America’s oil is im
ported,” said Bush, who was in
the oil business before entering
politics. “This is not good for our
national security.”
The state’s oil industry has
been hammered since late 1985,
during which time prices plum
meted from near $30 a barrel to
less than $10.
That crisis contributed to the
major real estate collapse, and the
state has seen more savings and
loans fail than any other.
Bush used his speech to reiter
ate his belief that the recent Alas
kan oil spill shouldn’t bring cut
backs in oil exploration, adding,
“Shutting down our domestic en
ergy production is no answer and
would merely increase our de
pendence on foreign oil. We must
and we will maintain a strong en
ergy industry.”
Bush said the continuing crisis
in the savings and loan industry
was among “the few dark clouds”
on the horizon.
The president praised the U.S.
Senate for acting quickly on an
S&L bailout bill and said, “I call
on the House of Representatives
to pass a responsible S&L bill as
George Bush
soon as possible.”
Bush was escorted into the
House chamber about 4:40 p.m.
by Gov. Bill Clements, a longtime
Bush loyalist who headed the
president’s 1988 campaign in
Texas.
After being introduced to the
lawmakers by House Speaker Gib
Lewis, D-Fort Worth, Bush re
ceived a standing ovation.
“It’s true, I like Kennebunk-
port (Maine, where he maintains
a house), but I am a Texan,” the
president said, telling his audi
ence that his driver’s license,
hunting license and voter regis
tration card all are from the state.
Professing admiration for au
thor Larry McMurtry and his Pu
litzer Prize-winning novel “Lone
some Dove,” the president
said,“There is no place on earth
like Texas. Nor is there another
Capitol in America quite like this
one. . . . And this being
Texas, we had to build a Capitol
that is exactly one foot taller than
the one in Washington.”
Chemists plan duplication of fusion tests
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two re
searchers who say they’ve mastered
fusion, the process that powers the
sun and the stars, told Congress
Wednesday they will duplicate their
experiments for government scien
tists in hopes of quieting skeptics.
“We have 19 experiments being
set up now,” University of Utah
chemist Stanley Pons told the House
Science Committee, including a
demonstration of room-temperature
fusion for scientists from the Los
Alamos National Laboratory.
Pons said the federal scientists will
monitor the experiment at Utah,
then dismantle it and take it to the
national laboratory in New Mexico
for further tests.
Pons and his collaborator, Martin
Fleischmann, of the University of
South Hampton in England, are
making the arrangement to silence
some of the skepticism about their
claim to have discovered a way to
achieve fusion using ordinary lab
equipment assembledf on a table top.
Tne two announced their discov
ery March 23, stunning nuclear
physicists around the world who
nave attempted to achieve fusion for
25 years using muldmillion-dollar
machines.
The hearing was jammed with
journalists, scientists and industrial
representatives anxious to' learn
more about a reaction that some pre
dict could produce plentiful electric
f xower with little environmental pol-
ution or threat.
Pons told the committee how he
and Fleischmann had inserted elec
trodes of platinum and palladium in
a flask containing deuteriam oxide,
or heavy water. Electrical current
was applied to the platinum elec
trode, Pons said, forcing deuterium
atoms into the crystal lattice of the
palladium.
He said that after the experiment
ran for several hours, the deuterium
became compressed and fused, giv
ing off heat almost four times as
great as the energy the experiment
had consumed.
Fleischmann said that in one en
deavor researchers succeeded in
causing water to reach the boiling
point. He added, however, that
there was still much work yet to be
done to develop a way of harvesting
useful energy from fusion.
The Utah researchers said they
built their initial experiment for
about $100,000, but Fleischmann
said that “production of a scale-up
device will cost about 10 times that”
and that the next phase, producing
enough energy to be useful, “would
cost millions.”
Nuclear physicists expressed
skepticism that the process described
by Pons and Fleischmann is actually
fusion. In testimony released to the
committee, scientists from the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory, Prince
ton University and Massachusetts
Institute of Technology all ex-
B ressed strong skepticism that the
Tah experiments achieved fusion.
Man performs euthanasia on son
while holding nurses at gunpoint
CHICAGO (AP) — A father tearfully unhooked his
comatose baby son’s life-support system early Wednes
day, then took him into his arms and kept hospital
workers at gunpoint until the child was dead, authori
ties said.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone, I’ll only hurt you if you
try to plug my baby back in,” police quoted Rudy Li
nares as saying.
“You can understand the motivation,” police Sgt.
William Rooney said. “I guess he didn’t want his child to
continue living under those conditions.”
The painter, from west suburban Chicago, was
charged with murdering his 16-month-old son, Samuel,
said Lisa Howard, spokesman for the Cook County
state’s attorney’s office.
Linares, 23, was held at a police lockup pending an
appearance in bond court. His wife, Tamara, who said
the couple had planned to. see a lawyer Friday about
having the child’s life-support system disconnected, was
not charged.
“ This is the best thing,” Tamara Linares told radio
station WBBM-AM. “Sammy is out of his misery.”
The couple have two other children, both under 5.
Linares also unhooked his son’s life support system
on Dec. 30 but staff members reconnected it. Detective
Gary Bulava said. When Linares arrived early Wednes
day, he spoke briefly with security personnel but was
not searched, Bulava added.
Doctors had notified the parents Tuesday that the
child was to be transferred to a long-term care unit,
Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center spokes
man Carolyn Reed said.
Police said Linares and his wife walked into the hos
pital about 1 a.m. and were escorted to the pediatric in
tensive care unit, where their son’s breathing had been
sustained by a ventilator since an accident in August.
About 20 minutes later, Linares pulled out a .357-cal-
iber handgun, ordered hospital staff out of the unit,
unhooked the infant from the life-support system and
sat with his son in his arms.
A&M proposes
limiting guests
at Bush speech
Graduates will be limited to the
number of guests at the 2 p.m.
May 12 commencement due to
President George Bush’s address,
but the Office of the Registrar is
asking for help in deciding how
many seats should be allotted to
each.
The proposed number is four
or five guests for each graduate.
A number of seats are being re
served for local, state and federal
officials.
Comments and questions con
cerning the restrtkdons should
be directed to Don Gardner in
the Office of the Registrar at 845-
1089.