October 15,2003
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EDITORIAL
Offensive parade
YCTprotest in bad taste
Americans are entitled to freedom of speech and expres
sion. States are prohibited by the Constitution from regulat
ing the content of speech that is offensive, hostile and
demeaning. However, while the Constitution protects what
may be considered hate speech, it does not prevent others
from criticizing clear abuses of the right to free expression.
The Young Conservatives of Texas’ anti-gay demonstration
last Wednesday fell into this category of abusive, hostile and
bigoted speech. Although YCT officials contend that the
demonstrations were not meant to insult gay, lesbian, bisexu
al and transgendered students, it is hard to see how “Satan is
aflamer” could be taken as anything other than a direct attack
-on this group of Aggies. If the Young Conservatives was
strictly concerned with Gender Issues Education Services
•funding events during Coming Out Week, as it claims, one
must wonder how “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” is
supposed to advertise a funding complaint.
As a recognized student organization at an institute of higher
learning, YCT is welcome to engage the student body in debate
over the use of student fees in a mature and civilized manner, but
this is not what happened last week. Instead of respecting the stu
dent body’s ability to talk about this issue rationally, YCT revert
ed to name-calling to get its opinion across.
Tacking blatantly offensive banners to vehicles and parading
them around campus —just days before the fifth anniversary of
the death of Matthew Shepard, who was strapped to a fence,
beaten into a coma and left to die allegedly because he was gay
— is neither a mature nor respectable way to express beliefs and
deserves to be denounced by Texas A&M student leaders.
THE BATTALION
EDITORIAL BOARD
Editor in Chief
Managing Editor
Opinion Editor
Metro Editor
Sommer Hamilton
Elizabeth Webb
Jenelle Wilson
Sarah Szuminski
Metro Asst.
Member
Member
C.E. Walters
Collins Ezeanyim
mah Rigney
The Battalion encourages letters to the editor. Letters must be 200 words or
less and include the author's name, class and phone number. The opinion editor
reserves the right to edit letters for length, style and accuracy. Letters may be sub
mitted in person at 014 Reed McDonald with a valid student ID. Letters also may
tie mailed to: 014 Reed McDonald. MS 1111, Texas A&M University, College
Station,TX 77843-1 111. Fax: (979) 845-2647 Email: mailcall@thebattalion.net
MAIL CALL
ire one of the ini-
I be discussed at a
the entire scope of
ucation.
tiative that will be
te forum are the
s initiative, aimed
tudents with an
work hands on
ctors to aid in the
d improvement of.
dents on campus,
third initiative on
3 mg ram that wi|
ic opportunity to
in their area of
iss.
will be held Nov.
n MSC 292A.
ting
m page 1
in unprecedented
onal attempt to
ad fair map with
try to guarantee
'en Republican
lisenfranchising
; and silencing
;s and independ-
said. “It’sabru-
-off: Seven GOP
but 3.6 million
Demonstrations
showed outdated
thinking
In response to Sarah
Sminski’s Oct. 9 article:
Call it what you want, the
YCT anti-gay rally is simply
another way to advertise to
potential students that they
are not welcome at Texas A&M
and to ostracize homosexuals
Mo are already enrolled
there. Now that I’m out in the
rest of the world and a working
professional, I was shocked to
read The Battalion’s headline
“YCT protest coming out
week.” It is so obvious to those
not immersed in that isolated
world that is College Station,
how outdated and unrepresen
tative this thinking is.
Texas A&M is supposed to
be a university of progressive
ideas and acceptance of fel
low students. You don’t have
to advertise that you accept
homosexuals but to mali
ciously target one group and
decide to focus all of your
hostilities on them is sick.
You don’t speak for all conser
vatives and certainly don’t
represent the student body.
ose.
ces the number
irity districts in
10, he said,
have disputed
lying the new
z minority dis-
and another in
Lawmakers
orneys as they
ps, said Bob
cesman for
exas House
ddick.
is a legal map,
o leave it to the
1 ’s office to’
r said.
to defend the
g plan and we
>epartment of
courts will
’ said Angela
man for Texas
Greg Abbott.
Jana Rodriguez
Class of 1997
YCT protest was
against religious
principles
In response to a Oct. 13 mail
call:
Ms. Davis made the comment
that what TAMU had done was
“.a slap in the face of Christians.”
Ms. Davis needs to know that
neither she nor any member of
her organization has the right to
speak for any Christian other
than themselves.
The YCT is ostensibly a sec
ular organization, yet it bases
its freely distributed opinions on
religious principles. Texas A&M
is a state-supported school, and
as such, is under no obligation
whatsoever to create its policies
and base its decisions on reli
gious principles. Indeed, A&M
has a duty not to promote any
religious agenda, Christian or
otherwise.
I am a lifelong Christian. I
have been an active member of
a Christian church most of my
life. I have served my church as
an elder for several years, i
happen to disagree with the
stand that Ms. Davis and the
YCT have taken against homo
sexuality. The Bible is very clear
in stating that we are to love our
neighbor and that God’s grace
is available to anyone, regard
less of race, religion, sexual ori
entation or station in life. The
actions and words of the YCT
reflect anything but a loving atti
tude toward one’s neighbor.
Bill Robbins
Class of 1981
Inaccurate facts in
diversity article
In response to Esther
Robards-Forbes Oct. 13 article:
I’d like to clarify a statement
that was attributed to me in the
“VP of diversity ready to fill
role” article where I was stated
as being a part of “the selec
tion committee” that chose Dr.
Anderson, when in fact I was
solely a part of the student
leaders committee which had
the opportunity to interview
each candidate for the Vice
President of diversity position.
The student leader commit
tee’s suggestions and con
cerns regarding the candidates
were then relayed to Dr. Gates.
Although the student body is
being the most affected by this
new office position, it is appar
ent that we as the committee
formed by student leaders are
not to be referred to as “the
selection committee.”
Julio Jana
International Student
Association President
Opinion
The Battalion
Cruel and
Page 9 • Wednesday, October 15, 2003
unusual
Chemicals used to execute inmates are inhumane
P erhaps opponents of animal testing
would take a perverse pleasure in the
irony that animals are being treated more
humanely than people when it comes to killing
them. While it is a crime in Tennessee to use
the chemical pancuronium bromide in pet
euthanasia, the same chemical is currently
used in Tennessee and nearly 30 other states
— including Texas — in the execution of
death row inmates.
A drug too inhumane to be used on animals
should not be used on humans, no matter how terrible their crime.
Opponents suggest that pancuronium bromide — marketed
as Pavulon — creates a chemical tomb that leaves the prisoner
paralyzed. In the words of Tennessee judge Ellen Hobbs Lyle,
it serves “no legitimate purpose” in the execution, other than
allowing the “subject (to give) all the appearances of a serene
expiration when actually (he) is feeling and perceiving the
excruciatingly painful ordeal of death by lethal injection ”
according to The New York Times.
The appeal of convicted killer Abu-Ali Abdur Rahman is
what brings the constitutionality of execution aided by
Pavulon into question, as its use allegedly violates the
Ninth Amendment’s guarantee against cruel and unusual
punishment.
However, Lyle upheld Pavulon’s constitutionality
because of its widespread use and the “less than
remote chance that the condemned will be subjected
to unnecessary physical pain or psychological suf
fering ” as reported in The Times.
This logic, however, fails to concede the
truth that in the remote cases
where the prior anesthesia
was administered in a
small or insufficient
dose, the effect pro
duced by Pavulon
would indeed be cruel
and unusual — the
prisoner will con
sciously be aware of
pain but in a para
lyzed state.
Dr. Mark Heath, a
Columbia University
anesthesiologist, cites
the execution of
Oklahoma City
bomber Timothy
McVeigh as a prime
example. He claims
that witness reports of McVeigh’s eyes tearing up are evidence
that he was at least semi-conscious when the heart-stopping,
lung-closing chemicals began to take their insufferable effect,
as reported by the Tennessean.
Additionally, the argument that the chemical is justified
because it is so widely used is ludicrous. Smoking is probably
more widespread than Pavulon use. The Tennessee attorney
general might so eagerly proclaim the innocuous nature of cig
arettes based on such a disjuncture of logic.
No valid reason exists for the continued use of pancuronium
bromide in executions.
Lyle declared that the chemical became part of Tennessee’s
execution protocol “out of ignorance and by just copying what
other states do,” according to The Associated Press — a con
fession that does not speak highly of the criminal justice
departments in Tennessee or any of the other states using simi
lar procedures. Peer pressure hardly cuts it as an excuse for any
adolescent, let alone a state justice system. The argument that
all the other states are doing it could easily be refuted by every
mother’s battle cry: “If all of your friends jumped off a
bridge, would you?”
One must wonder how such an egregious breach of public
trust — the horrible misjudgment of a potentially tortuous, sup
posedly humane euthanasia procedure — could be possible in
such a scientifically advanced society. Someone obviously real
ized the threat of suffering caused by
pancuronium bromide when
used in animals because
the American Veterinary
Medical Association
banned its use.
Abdur Rahman
protests his sentence
with the com
plaint that by
using Pavulon,
“They’re saying
Tm less than an
animal.” With
his horrendous
crime — binding
a couple with
duct tape and
repeatedly plung
ing a butcher
knife into their
flesh — he seems
to fit the bill.
Nonetheless,
despite the
amount of suffer
ing one may feel
such a moral
derelict deserves,
pancuronium
bromide must no
longer be used in
executions.
Effective
alternatives exist
that eliminate the
superfluous pan
curonium bromide from the death recipe, including the method
of choice in animal euthanasia — one dose of sodium pento
barbital. Additionally, Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, a professor of
medicine at Yale and author of “How We Die,” avers in The
Times that simply omitting pancuronium bromide from the
lethal-injection chemical triumvirate would leave the prisoner
just as dead, only with a more pleasant final breath.
Lindsay Orman is a senior
English major.
LINDSAY
ORMAN
Tony Piedra *THE BATTALION
Emotions clouding RU-486 debate
Availability of drug should rely only on medical facts
O n Sept. 17, Holly
Patterson, an 18-
year-old from
Livermore, Calif., died
after taking mifepris
tone, also known as RU-
486 or the abortion pill,
a week before her death.
Abortion opponents are
already debating the
safety of the drug that is
thought to have contributed to her death.
According to CBS News, her father
learned from an attending physician that
she died from septic shock, which is cur
rently being attributed to a complication
that led to an infection after a medical
abortion using the pill. The coroner’s
report has yet to determine if that is what
caused her death.
While there has been an outcry from
both the anti-abortion and abortion rights
sides regarding the legitimacy of the
drug, the actual chemical interaction
with the patient has not been shown as
dangerous. Although many social issues
surround the use of this drug, those
should not come into play in determining
the drug’s safety. The only issue that
needs to be examined is the overall
effectiveness and quality of the drug, and
how safe it really is for the consumer.
More than one million people world
wide have used RU-486 since its devel
opment in'the 1980s. Many groups have
argued since its inception that the RU-
486 pill is unsafe for women. However,
the rate of death is much greater for
women who go through with the child
birthing process, according to
ReligiousTolerancere.org. Statistically,
there is one death in 200,000 RU-486
abortions, one death in 200,000 surgical
abortions, one death in 14,300 child
birthing pregnancies and one death in
3,000 illegal abortions.
The FDA approved RU-486 because it
was considered safe for the general popu
lation. Major testing and trials have been
conducted in 20 other countries, including
France, Britain and Germany. Each of
these countries has concluded the drug is
safe for use in medical abortions.
Patterson’s is only the third death attrib
uted to mifepristone since the FDA
approved it for the United States in 2000.
The FDA, however, is unsure whether the
deaths were directly related to the drug.
While any death related to a specific
drug is unfortunate, it is not altogether
uncommon. The arguments now being made
on the safety of the drug are due to the
moral opponents of the drug, not the chemi
cal ones. That is not the issue here though.
If RU-486 is unsafe for consumption,
there must be scientific evidence to
prove it. The disagreement over the
morality of abortion should not color the
safety of the drug.
Until there is some definitive proof
that RU-486 is dangerous, it should
remain on the market.
What needs to be evaluated in addi
tion to RU-486’s possible role is the
medical attention Patterson received
when she went to the hospital for severe
cramps and bleeding. Did the doctors
know that she had taken RU-486, and if
so, did they follow the proper procedures
in examining her?
What the question regarding RU-486
truly comes down to is the quality of the
drug: is it safe for human consumption?
This is not a case of values, beliefs or
ethics; nor is this a case of rights and
choices. This is a case of the effective
ness of a drug, and whether the medical
advantages of the drug outweigh the pos
sible disadvantages.
There are no qualms with aspirin
being sold over the counter and being
taken without medical supervision, but,
according to Eric Schaffchair of the
National Abortion Federation, “aspirin
causes more deaths than RU-486.” If this
is the case, why are there no outcries
from consumers about this drug being
freely sold over the counter?
The fact that there is no opposition to
the drug does not come from chemical
factors, but from moral ones; aspirin does
not purposefully prevent a pregnancy or
any other medical condition that has the
opportunity for moral debate, it is just a
temporary reliever of physical pain.
If the drug is unsafe for consumption,
and there is scientific data to back the
statement up, it should be taken off of
the market. The chemical components
and physical interactions should be fully
considered. But if the argument for tak
ing this specific drug off the market is
just a battle between two social groups,
both claiming to have the correct moral
answers, this is not a question at all: The
drug should stay on the market as an
option for those who want to take it.
Lauren Esposito is a senior
English major.
LAUREN
ESPOSITO