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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 26, 1989)
1 I The Battalion OPINION WwtaMday, July 26,1989 2 WHO GETS THE PARKING TICKET? Legislative session ends in failure HISSING TEMPOR ART PARKING PERMIT AS 0 -rue BA'H’ / FIREMCN ON6 INCM OYER Catholic stance on birth ^ I control needs reversing "Population, when unchecked, in creases in a geometrical ratio. Subsis tence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with num bers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second." Thomas Malthus realized this relationship in 1798 and left it for the world to pondet and worry over in his timeless An Essay on the Principle of Population. It is unfortunate that the Roman Catholic Church either has not come to the realization that the spectre of over population is a severe threat to man kind, or has chosen to ignore this prob lem. This Saturday will mark the 21st an niversary of Pope Paul V'l’s banning of all forms of birth control. • Though the Roman (jitholk Church has certainly made its share of mistakes over the centuries, the recent position it has taken on sex may be its most drastic screw-up. The Pope’s decision was cehtered on his belief that "every matrimonial act must remain open to the transmission of life." He also indicated that the rhythm method should not even be employed as a regular practice. The papal ruling aborted the efforts of the Pope’s own appointed committee that had. in 1966, recommended that the already existing ban on contraception be halted. Well, Pope Paul is dead, but Catholi cism is flourishing. How could it not? W’hen the papal ruling was handed down, half a billion Roman Catholics in habited the world. Because the follow ers of this faith tend to adhere to its pol icies. the church is growing boundlessly. It reminds me of Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life” — a film that at one point depicts the plight of a third world Catholic family that grows so large the father has to sell his kids to medical sci ence. Though the movie was humorous, the situation it satinzed is not at all funny. 1 recall that in mv youth I was fascinated with knowing what the big gest (along with fastest, strongest and baddest) things in the world were. To kyo was the biggest city in the world. That meant it was even bigger than Houston, which was almost inconceiva ble to a kid mv age. Later. I was even more shocked when I found out Mexico City had instanta neously shot by Tokyo to become the most populous city. I do not know whether to blame the Pope or Cortez for that one. but either way, Mexico is a largely Catholic country and birth con trol is seldom practiced. Mexico City is symbolic of many of the Catholic third-world countries. These countries often face the overpop ulation and subsequent starvation seen in Mexico City and described by Mal thus. In these seemingly godforsaken places, survival of the fittest is merely survival of the fullest. The only people who are full are the supporters of the birth-control ban, and I prefer not to mention their contents. limes have changed over the 21 years since Pope Paul VI made his deci sion. A sad note is that Catholic contra ception policies haven't changed. Since 1969. the threat of sexuallv transmitted diseases has manifested it self. in America and abroad, as a most formidable opponent The federal gov ernment even advised the use of con doms via the Surgeon General's quite widely distributed AIDS pamphlet. 1 see only two possible solutions to these ills. The first is the reversal of the Roman Catholic birth-control statue. Bevond the fact that the reversal is now almost a necessity, it is quite logical If birth is held in such high regard bv the church, how do thev treat infertile peo ple? *1 cannot agtre with sex as being purely a means to an end. This is espe cially true considering that the end, childbirth, often |>er|>etuates the prob lem ot starvation as Malthus suggested. The only other solution would have to be the disregarding of the anti-con traception rules by members of the Ro man Catholic Church. This is quite diffi cult to achieve, but something must be done. Starvation is not a Christian policy. Matt McBumett is a junior electrical engineering major and a columnist for The Battalion. Another special session has ended in failure and there’s an all-stations blame- alert on. All the usual suspects in work ers comp are being blamed by all the ob vious people The governor blames the trial lawyers, the Senate blames big busi ness. Housies blame labor, the smart people are blaming the insurance com panies and everybody's mad at the sys tem. Ain't democracy grand? For a handle on who’s being unrea sonable around here, you may want to take note of the post-session comments of House Speaker Gib Lewis, staunch fnend of business and the man who heads the chamber that kept writing workers comp bills that favor bidness and insurance. "You can blame the busi ness community — if that's what you want to do. if you want to blame some one — for plav mg an inactive role in the whole process.’’ said Lewis. Maybe hr means business should have leaned harder, but I took it to mean that business wasn't paving atten tion and didn't know when it was being offered a good deal. Sen. Ted Lyon said. "If the business community had been offered this bill two years ago. they would have danced out of the Capitol and held a party on the front lawn." Two items for next time — this should lie the last time we have to listen to Richard Smith and the House nego tiators piously claim they care deeply about worker safety and are supporting all measures to help mi that area. Bull, thev are. 1 point out for the jillionth time that the main reason this state has such high workers comp costs is because this state has such a high rate of workers being hurt on the job. If you fix worker safety, you fix the workers comp prob lem. It is the cheapest, most effective, most rational and most humane way to fix it. But when it got down to actually doing something about worker safety, suddenly the House members didn't want to go ’’overboard." Rep. Rick Perry of Haskell, who was on the conference committee, said cur rent economic conditions in Texas do not support spending millions on safety and that the House doesn't want to "put a burden on the business of this state." Whv is it better to pav billions in work ers comp than millions for worker # safety? And what does he think business m this state is toting around now? The figures I used in this column three months ago — although they were chal lenged by a poorly-informed legislator — have been reverified by the National Safety Council and are correct. Numero Two-o, every body needs to take a much closer look at how insur ance companies set the premiums for comp insurance. There are some hickic* in there that need to be fixed real bad. The sensible thing to do would be to call the members back into session im mediately since they ’re all focused, in tense and full of information and ideas on comp. Difficult legislation is son of like making fudge — you have to let it boil for a while before it will jell. Right now the legislature is boiling, but if Clements puts off a special until No vember. they’ll all cool down again and it will just take longer But it's been so long since I've seen Bill Clements do anything right. I have no hope he will. And. here’s a pleasant summer as signment — a good movie. Spike lee’s “Do the Right Thing’’ shouldn’t be missed (although it is not tor those who wince at the f-word). lee, the extraordi- . narilv talented young, black director, has made a brilliant movie on a shoestr ing about racism in America. It's also funny and. of course, sad. And. how about those abortion polls? New abortion polls are rolling in ‘since the Webster decision, with the usual confusion stemming from how the ques tions are asked. But some constants are showing up that should fie useful to all of us in the coming debates. Polls consistently find tha,i only one in 10 Americans believes abortion is mur der. The polls show people are all over the spectrum on when and why, and they think abortions should be per formed but are happily united, over 70 percent, m their opinion that the gov ernment should not make these deci sions. h« And one finding that seems to me most interesting is that one demogra phic segment of the population consis tently turns up as the most pro-choice. Who? Women of child (tearing age. Cynics will find this evidence of Dr. Johnson's famous contention. "Depend upon it. sir. when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." No surprise that those not facing the prospect of being hanged m a fortnight, as it were, seem not have concentrated as much on the subject. An extension of that phetumienon appears in a gender gap armiiig legis lators. According to a poll done by the Onter for the American Woman and Politics at Rutgers University, women legislators are more pro-choke than their male colleagues. Only 26 percent of the women lawmakers think abortion should be banned under all or most cir cumstances, while 38 percent of their male colleagues do. - The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Aaacx lation Southwest Joumahtm C'-oafereme The Battalion Editorial Board Ellen Hobbs Editor Juliette Riaao. Opinion Page Editor Fiona Sdltes. City Editor T Drew Leder, Chuck Squatriglia. News Editors ■ Steven Merritt. Soorts-Editor Kathy Haveman. 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