Letters to the Editor
Leeandra Nolting
Published Letters: 177 Editor's Choice: 10
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Nancy...
[Read the article: Midday roundup]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Judging from the call letters of WDUQ, I'm guessing that this is a college radio station run by the university, staffed mainly by college journalism students. I'm guessing that the university has a radio station primarily for the purpose of recruiting/training students in the nuts and bolts of broadcasting.
I worked at one of these stations for four years (91.5 FM WUEV, Evansville, IN). The University of Evansville was a Methodist school, but the newscast and several other programs were underwritten by the Catholic Diocese of Evansville. I was actually the news director for two of those years, and we won the Best College Radio Newscast at the Indiana SPJ awards every year, so we must have been doing something right.
Guess what? The Diocese didn't give a rat's ass what we put in our newscast. Not ONCE did we get any flak from them. The University Public Relations Office, however, was CONSTANTLY trying to meddle...
I really don't get what the big deal is here. Nobody's infringing on journalistic freedom; they're just saying, thanks, but no thanks, to some money. The station license is held by a Catholic University, and agree with it or not, the Catholic Church considers both contraception and abortion to be gravely wrong. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the nation. Would you be so up in arms if they refused money from Phillip Morris on grounds that they're well-known to be the largest tobacco company in the nation, and that their products are known to cause cancer?
Even in the world of commercial radio, just 'cause you got the money, honey, doesn't mean we have to sell you the airtime...
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Catholics and Bush...
[Read the article: Midday roundup]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A lot of Catholics (and people of other or no religious affiliation) oppose abortion, capital punishment, and the Iraq war. The Pope himself strongly urged Bush to find a peaceful solution.
I know a lot of Catholics who don't like Bush and oppose the war, but voted for him anyway. These are people who truly consider human life as beginning when sperm meets egg. They saw that over a million abortions were being performed legally every year in America. They saw the death toll in Iraq in comparison as quite small. They saw Bush's record on abortion, his promise to appoint Supreme Court Justices that would try to overturn Roe v. Wade. They saw Kerry's record on abortion, his promise to appoint justices that would uphold Roe v. Wade, and that he had no real plan for getting us out of Iraq. They went with what they considered the lesser of two evils.
(Myself, I refused on principle to vote for either Bush or Kerry. I sat that part of the ballot out. Was that the right decision? I don't know.)
The irony is that Planned Parenthood is getting free nationwide advertising now by having their ads pulled from a Catholic college's public radio station. Sometimes I wonder why PP tries to advertise in places they gotta know will pull their ads...
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whoa, people...
[Read the article: Midday roundup]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not saying I agree with the conclusions of those who voted for Bush over Kerry; I'm saying that it was, for many, a vote based on the principle of trying to cause the least amount of foreseeable harm.
If Kerry had offered a viable way of getting our asses out of Iraq, perhaps some of those voters would have come to a different conclusion and cast their votes differently...
I am not saying that each and every innocent Iraqi, American, etc. life lost in the war is worth less than any fetus. I did not mean to seem to minimize the death toll in Iraq; I meant "small" in comparison to the number of abortions performed each year. The people I was talking about feel that all life, from conception till death, is equal. Yes, they "ran the numbers." Would Jesus do that in this situation? I truly don't know. Jesus, after all, would have power and insight that I lack.
As to the Catholic Church constantly harping on issues of sex and reproduction instead of war, poverty, etc...I could point out that they harp on a lot of things, but sex and reproduction seem to be the only "Catholic" issues that the press usually chooses to report on...
melthough, I was being sarcastic when I asked about PP and free advertising;).
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why is this, even in the Western media, being framed as a "women's issue"...
[Read the article: Dying to become mothers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...instead of a public health issue? One in six Afghan women die in childbirth--that means approximately one in twelve Afghanis die a nearly-always preventable death.
"Over one-half take place in sub-Saharan Africa." Isn't that also where female circumcision is the most prevalent? Seems to me if you sew it up, the baby's gonna have a harder time getting out...I'm betting a lot of the babies die because of this too.
I've often wondered if we'd have better luck improving the conditions of women in childbirth by focusing on the effects on the health of the offspring. I'm not saying it would change people's hearts and minds about the position of women; but if it got more women access to midwives and doctors...
Just a thought.