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Opinion
The Battalion
Page 9 • Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Unstable futures
Lack of funding for mental health institutions puts childrens’ lives at risk
To
B ecause mental health care is in a state
of crisis in Texas and the rest of the
nation, jail time currently provides the
best opportunity for receiving quality treat
ment. This in itself evinces the shocking truth
that mentally ill people must become a threat
to society before they are recognized as need
ing help and eligible for therapy through state
run correctional institutions.
Mental illnesses must be diagnosed and
treated at an earlier stage. State funding of
mental health programs must be given greater priority
ignore these necessary measures is ludicrous.
According to a report issued by Human Rights Watch, the
number of incarcerated mentally ill adults is three times that of
those in hospital treatment. Putting these people behind bars
has been labeled “the nation’s default men-
tal health treatment” by The New York
Times, anything but a misnomer.
For example, almost 3,000 Tennesseans
are victims of the cycle of imprisonment
and treatment, according to the Chattanooga
Times Free Press. The number of inmates
suffering from severe mental illness has
quadrupled in Colorado over the past 10
years as the space in mental institutions
continues to diminish due to a lack of fund
ing, as reported in The Denver Post. The
3,400 mentally ill prisoners in the Los
Angeles County jail make it the largest de
facto psychiatric inpatient facility in the
country, according to The Times.
While the recent case of Rebekah Amaya,
who is accused of drowning her two children and then attempt
ing suicide, has spotlighted issues of mental health and criminal
ity, one cannot ignore the possibility that increased state spend
ing to develop and make available more effective psychological
treatment at an earlier stage of mental illness may have prevent
ed such a crime from taking place.
Texas Monthly recently reported the story of Grant Williams,
a teenage boy undergoing treatment at Corsicana Residential
Treatment Center, who hears a voice in his head that has led him
to steal, punch a county-jail guard and start a fire with baseball
jerseys he stole from a concession stand. The voice contin
ues to terrify him with threats of a 50-headed snake coming
to get him and the suggestion that he “end it all.”
Though it may not appear this way, Williams is lucky. He
is one of the relatively few teenagers in Texas who, because
of his arrest, has access to an institution that can offer pro
fessional, intense treatment every day.
In a state with a dangerously insufficient mental health
system, some parents of mentally ill children turned crimi
nally deviant have begun filing charges against their own
children in hopes that they will be sentenced to Texas Youth
Commission’s treatment facility at Corsicana, according to
Texas Monthly. Others have even relinquished custody of
their children to Texas’ Department of Child Protective
Services because the agency is required by law to supply
mental health care.
This desperation evidences a fright
ening situation: Other than these
extreme options for acute cases, only
one 81-bed residential treatment center
in Waco can accommodate mentally ill
children needing inpatient treatment.
Furthermore, mentally unstable juve
nile delinquents can be rehabilitated if
treated soon enough — otherwise, they
grow into adult criminals who are even
more psychotic and dangerous after
additional years of mental deterioration.
Psychiatrist James Boynton of the
Corsicana facility sums up the problem
when he says that institution is mentally
ill children’s “last good chance to get bet
ter. The tragedy is that for so many of
these kids, this is also their first chance to get better too.”
Correctional institutions such as Corsicana Residential
Treatment Center offer therapy and accommodations
equaled only by expensive private hospitals with long wait
ing lists. For mentally ill adults as well as children, it is only
after being arrested and convicted of a crime that they gain
access to a chance at recovery.
State budgets neglect to provide adequate funding for the
mentally ill, leaving many to deteriorate to the point of crimi
nality. Ironically, it is only by committing crimes that many of
Furthermore, mentally
unstable juvenile delinquents
can be rehabilitated if treated
soon enough — otherwise, they
grow into adult criminals who
are even more psychotic and
dangerous after additional
years of mental deterioration.
Paul Wilson • THE BATTALION
these people are able to gain access to the treatments that may
have prevented them from turning criminal in the first place.
Lindsay Orman is a senior
English major.
Banning human cloning stifles possible breakthroughs
T he United Nations
voted last week to
delay further consider
ation of a ban on human
cloning. This was a setback
for the Bush administration,
which had been campaigning
hard to ban all forms of the
still-experimental practice.
There are two main types
of human cloning: reproduc
tive and therapeutic. Reproductive cloning is the
process by which a person makes infant clones
of himself. Therapeutic cloning involves the use
of cloned embryos by scientists to gain stem
cells — cells they can use to search for cures
for a wide range of diseases. The U.S. position
would haye forbidden both kinds, despite the
potential benefit of therapeutic cloning.
The U.N. General Assembly wisely ignored
the American campaign and did well in delay
ing the ban. This is no time to stop promising
medical research just to advocate strict moral
rules that are far from universally accepted.
Though the member states of the United
Nations unanimously opposed reproductive
cloning, they were divided on the issue of ther
apeutic cloning. Scientists support this type of
cloning since they can use it to produce human
embryos from which they can collect stem
cells. These they can make into any kind of cell
in the body, raising the possibility of “growing”
replacement organs for sick people. However,
the Roman Catholic Church and anti-abortion
groups feel that stem cell research is immoral
because it starts with the destruction of a
human embryo to recover the cells.
Make no mistake: Trying to produce a cloned
infant through reproductive cloning is indeed
unethical. With the current procedure, it is likely
that such a cloned baby would suffer from
severe birth defects. Plus, the process is very
inefficient, cc, the cloned cat born in February
2002 and residing at Texas A&M, was the only
survivor of 87 embryos created.
Therapeutic cloning is a different case alto
gether due to its’potential for helping suffering
people. Take, for example, Judson Somerville,
a 40-year-old Texas man who injured his
spinal cord in a cycling accident and is now
paralyzed from his chest down. In the thera
peutic cloning procedure, researchers would
take a regular cell from Somerville’s body,
place it in a human egg, and allow this cloned
cell to grow for about four days. Scientists
would then harvest the embryonic stem cells
from the cloned egg and direct these stem cells
to grow into nerve cells. These could then be
used to repair Somerville’s damaged spinal
cord, possibly helping him move again. Since
the nerve cells are derived from Somerville
himself, his body will accept them readily,
avoiding the problem of immune rejection that
plagues organ transplants today.
Nevertheless, President George W. Bush
declared that “the use of embryos to clone is
wrong. We should not as a society grow life to
destroy it.” In saying that, Bush and other ther
apeutic cloning opponents confuse human life
with cellular life. They mistakenly claim that a
microscopic ball of cells in a Petri dish is as
morally significant as Judson Somerville. They
want to confer full moral standing to cells that,
unlike Judson Somerville, have no thoughts,
no emotions, no hopes and no sensation.
Furthermore, even if the cloned egg is
accorded the same moral standing as a full-
grown human, therapeutic cloning should still
occur. When the president sent American
troops to Iraq, he knew that some soldiers
would die, but by ordering them there he did
not commit murder. Rather, when a few sol
diers did die, the president said they had sacri
ficed their lives to protect the safety and free
dom of the American people.
Therapeutic cloning must be viewed in the
same way. A cloned embryo will not be
destroyed, but, rather, sacrificed to yield stem
cells that will alleviate the suffering of mil
lions of Americans.
A report issued by the National Academy of
Sciences concluded that stem-cell-based thera
pies could help the 58 million Americans who
suffer with cardiovascular diseases, the 30 mil
lion who have autoimmune diseases, the 16
million who endure diabetes, the 5.5 million
who slowly lose their minds to Alzheimer’s —
the list is endless. Just like vaccines and antibi
otics defeated many of the diseases that killed
young people in the last century, stem cell
therapies may conquer many old age diseases
in the 21st century.
To stifle that possibility is immoral and
ignorant. It seems in the case of the human
cloning, one should throw out the cloned
organism, but keep the research bathwater that
might one day comfort and cure millions of
suffering patients.
Midhat Farooqi is a senior
genetics major.
MIDHAT
FAROOQI
MAIL CALL
Having sex not always
an option for women
In response to a Nov. 10 mail call:
0
0
Mr. Auter dismissed the case for
women’s reproductive rights by saying
that women lose their choice the
moment they have sex. This is not only
a sexist statement, but it is also incor
rect. Also, Mr. Auter failed to address
an even more ghastly issue — rape.
Does the victim of a rape lose her
reproductive rights, too, then “at the
point of conception?” Should a woman
be forced to carry a child of a rapist,
give up almost a year of her life and
her normal standard of life for a crime
she didn’t commit? To bring a child into
the world is a choice that a woman
must retain at all times, especially
when she didn’t have a choice about
its conception.
What about the father? He too chose
to have sex, but loses no rights it the
woman then becomes pregnant. The
bias of nature is balanced by the rights
of women. Women, in the case of
child-bearing and birth, have more say
because it’s in their body, and their
lives are affected. It’s the women who
give up caffeine and alcohol to carry
the fetus, who buy the larger clothes to
accommodate it and who take mater
nity leave from their jobs to care for it if
it is carried to term.
Meredith M. Clancy
Class of2007
Students should let
go of Bonfire dreams
In response to a Nov. 10 mail call:
With all due respect to a former
Corps commander and fellow Aggie,
there is nothing humble and profes
sional about an organization that is
disobeying a direct request from the
University president. It represents
more ego and arrogance than humil
ity. Give it up; let it go. People died
and the University stands to lose mil
lions of dollars because of lawsuits
resulting from the same type of “lead
ership” that was in place when the
disaster occurred.
Swede Hanson
Class of 1999
Men and women
must be responsible
In response to a Nov. 11 mail call:
It must be conceded that there are
many immature and backwards
young men in our “conservative com
munity” who give decent men a bad
name. Unfortunately, while in college,
those men are an active minority.
However, many grow up and join the
quiet and decent majority of family
men in our community.
The problem is, too many men and
women do not take personal responsi
bility upon themselves. Men should
possess personal dignity and respect
for women’s their rights. They should
also respect themselves enough not to
carouse with loose women who may
one day be in a position to think about
getting an abortion.
Women should take it upon them
selves to behave honorably and
should respect themselves enough
not to go along with what the vulgar
minority of men want from them.
Moreover, women should respect
themselves enough to expect men to
be polite, decent, courteous and
respectful and have no tolerance for
those who are not.
As for the rights of those affected by
abortion, women’s rights are only sec
ondary to the life they carry. Most
important is the right of life for the
unborn child, which is entrusted by
proxy to the mother and father. The
father’s rights are tertiary.
Dalton Vann,
Class of2002
Abortions try to make
women like men
Ms. Henderson, you said that you will
not “stand to be blamed or feel
ashamed for being a woman in this
country.” Early feminists opposing
abortion were proud to be women, but
recognized their differences from men.
Modern feminists believe that, since
men cannot have babies, women
should be able to terminate their preg
nancy (to become more like men).
You deserve better than a society
that does not respect women and
demands that they become more like
men to obtain respect. You deserve a
society that upholds the dignity of sin
gle pregnant women, provides good
low-cost prenatal care, good maternity
benefits and better adoption laws.
You said that men are causing
women to need abortions as well as
stripping women of their right to have
an abortion.The men who are stalking,
abusing, molesting and raping women
are typically not the men who oppose
abortion. The men who are doing
these things depend on abortion to
“clean up” the situations that they cre
ate. I am certainly not perfect, but I do
try to uphold the dignity and respect
that women deserve.
Patrick Williams
Class of 2002
The Battalion encourages letters to the edi
tor. 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 submitted in person at 014 Reed
McDonald with a valid student ID. Letters also
may be mailed to: 014 Reed McDonald, MS
1111, Texas A&M University, College Station,
TX 77843-1 111. Fax: (979) 845-2647 Email:
inailcall@thebattalion.net