The abortion is issue is about choice. Should women have the option to choose to terminate their pregnancy or should the state be in charge of women's bodies? Personally, I am pro-choice. I do not believe that the government should have the power to make such a personal, emotionally decision for its citizens. Eliminating the possibility of legal abortion will only lead to overcrowded adoption centers, dangerous "back alley" abortions, and children that do not receive proper care because they were unwanted/unplanned.
Having perused two websites, the NARAL Pro-Choice America site and the National Right to Life site, I am still pro-choice. I found the NARAL site to be informative and easy to navigate, with information on not only abortion but birth control, sex ed, and adoption possibilities. I found the Right to Life site nauseating. I appreciate the interest NARAL takes in helping women and their dedication to getting the care and information they need, no matter what they end up choosing for their individual pregnancy. On the right to life site, I could hardly read the information, having been distracted by hideous graphic images and nauseating descriptions of abortion. Unfortunately, it seems the anti-choice party is winning this debate in small but permanent steps of legislation and with emotionally wrenching imagery. Nevertheless, I still believe that the pro-choice argument is more convincing.
While I am pro-choice, I do believe that parents should have knowledge of whether or not their child is seeking an abortion. They should be able to offer their opinions to the minor. However, I still believe that the ultimate decision should be up to the pregnant woman. After all, it is her body and her risk. I feel the same way about paternal notification. The father of the child should be notified, but the decision should still rest with the mother. He is not the one who will have to make sacrifices, carry a child, and face health risks and pain that accompany pregnancy and delivery.
I agree with the law that states that refusal to administer an abortion cannot be cause for discrimination or criminal liability. This is a heated issue, laced with emotional and religious undertones. Persons should never be forced to perform something as potentially compromising as an abortion. However, other laws seem to blatantly deny women access to proper care. Similar to the previous law, another piece of legislation allows medical personnel to deny women access to information on all of their options, specifically abortion. These and other laws do not help women in any way. While their name, TRAP laws, implies extreme bias towards the pro-choice movement, it cannot be denied that the laws restrict facilities where abortions could be provided, thus preventing women from getting the care they need in their home town, city, or even state. IL laws on abortion place unnecessary burdens on women who need options.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Giving Thanks
This Thanksgiving we ordered a pizza. While many cooks and tradition enthusiasts would consider this a travesty, I consider it a victory. My family was responsible for the death of not a single turkey this holiday. We enjoyed not only grilled vegetables, baked mac n' cheese, and pizza, but a long conversation about the food industry and food philosophy. While my extended family may not leave the dark side any time soon, I appreciate their consideration of us vegetarian folk.
I am thankful for friends, family, good (cruelty-free) food, and the freedoms I have because I live in the USA. Happy belated Thanksgiving, I hope everyone enjoys a healthy, happy, holiday season.
I am thankful for friends, family, good (cruelty-free) food, and the freedoms I have because I live in the USA. Happy belated Thanksgiving, I hope everyone enjoys a healthy, happy, holiday season.
Eating Animals: Makes Me Sick
This chapter, Foer discusses the role factory farm animals and livestock play in how humanity contracts diseases. He finds that their role is a massive one. While Foer lists the hundreds of ailments and horrific diseases that plague the creatures we eat, I'll focus on one here: influenza.
In 1918, the Spanish flu (so named for the press coverage the death tolls received in Spain), was a pandemic that covered the globe. "Whereas AIDS took roughly twenty-four years to kill 24 million people, the Spanish flu killed as many in twenty-four weeks" (124). 25% of Americans became ill, and not just the elderly and very young, but healthy middle-aged people. Today, a pandemic like the Spanish flu is the World Health Organization (WHO)'s worst nightmare. "Recent history has averaged a pandemic every 27 and a half years" which means we are long overdue (125). WHO predicts 2 million to 7.4 million deaths, conservatively. The disease, be it the predicted H5N1, or another, would ruthlessly destroy not only lives, but nations.
So where would this pending catastrophe originate? Our food. Specifically, the birds. Birds are responsible for carrying "the full spectrum of flu strains as categorized by today's science: H1 through . . . H16, N1 through N9" (128). While this may sound like some Alfred Hitchcock movie, the truth is that we, humans, are susceptible to several strains of avian-carried flu. So are pigs. When an avian virus mutates with a pig virus, it can create a disease that affects humans too. This is how H1N1, the swine flu, was born. Pigs are the only animals that are vulnerable to bird, pig, and human diseases. If they should mix, the possibility of H5N1 would be very real and highly threatening.
We've heard about the horrific living conditions of chickens, the most commonly consumed bird in the USA. We've heard about the cruel and messy business of their slaughter, and we've heard how they're packaged, inflated with salts and chemicals, covered in their own feces, and shipped to our friendly neighborhood groceries. So why it should come as a surprise that "50 billion sickly, drugged birds -- birds that are the primordial source of all flu viruses. . . [and] 500 million pigs with compromised immune systems in confinement facilities. . ." are causing mutations and widespread disease (138).
As Foer goes on to discuss other food borne illnesses, strains of E. Coli, etc. I wonder just what it is that's keeping people from giving up their precious meat, in favor of health. The pathogens and antibacterial medications that farmers are pumping into their animals are being rendered useless to humans, diseases are overcoming them. At what point will we stop, look around, and realize that there is not a single antibiotic left to treat human diseases? At what point will WHO's nightmare come to pass, and the world will be a few billion doses short of life-saving medicine for a disease that came from someone's chicken, or pig meat?
Oh wait, people can't give up disease-ridden, tortured animal flesh. Where would they get their protein?
If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me "but where do you get your protein?" I wouldn't need to get a job, or worry about student loans. However, I never mind answering truthfully: "plants." After reading this chapter, I can now go on to add that "excess animal protein intake is linked with osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones in the urinary tract, and some cancers" (144). Eating animals is a recipe for disease, whether individually devastating, or of pandemic proportions.
I'm less worried about where I'm getting my protein from than what diseases the sick habits of this omnivorous nation have unleashed.
In 1918, the Spanish flu (so named for the press coverage the death tolls received in Spain), was a pandemic that covered the globe. "Whereas AIDS took roughly twenty-four years to kill 24 million people, the Spanish flu killed as many in twenty-four weeks" (124). 25% of Americans became ill, and not just the elderly and very young, but healthy middle-aged people. Today, a pandemic like the Spanish flu is the World Health Organization (WHO)'s worst nightmare. "Recent history has averaged a pandemic every 27 and a half years" which means we are long overdue (125). WHO predicts 2 million to 7.4 million deaths, conservatively. The disease, be it the predicted H5N1, or another, would ruthlessly destroy not only lives, but nations.
So where would this pending catastrophe originate? Our food. Specifically, the birds. Birds are responsible for carrying "the full spectrum of flu strains as categorized by today's science: H1 through . . . H16, N1 through N9" (128). While this may sound like some Alfred Hitchcock movie, the truth is that we, humans, are susceptible to several strains of avian-carried flu. So are pigs. When an avian virus mutates with a pig virus, it can create a disease that affects humans too. This is how H1N1, the swine flu, was born. Pigs are the only animals that are vulnerable to bird, pig, and human diseases. If they should mix, the possibility of H5N1 would be very real and highly threatening.
We've heard about the horrific living conditions of chickens, the most commonly consumed bird in the USA. We've heard about the cruel and messy business of their slaughter, and we've heard how they're packaged, inflated with salts and chemicals, covered in their own feces, and shipped to our friendly neighborhood groceries. So why it should come as a surprise that "50 billion sickly, drugged birds -- birds that are the primordial source of all flu viruses. . . [and] 500 million pigs with compromised immune systems in confinement facilities. . ." are causing mutations and widespread disease (138).
As Foer goes on to discuss other food borne illnesses, strains of E. Coli, etc. I wonder just what it is that's keeping people from giving up their precious meat, in favor of health. The pathogens and antibacterial medications that farmers are pumping into their animals are being rendered useless to humans, diseases are overcoming them. At what point will we stop, look around, and realize that there is not a single antibiotic left to treat human diseases? At what point will WHO's nightmare come to pass, and the world will be a few billion doses short of life-saving medicine for a disease that came from someone's chicken, or pig meat?
Oh wait, people can't give up disease-ridden, tortured animal flesh. Where would they get their protein?
If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me "but where do you get your protein?" I wouldn't need to get a job, or worry about student loans. However, I never mind answering truthfully: "plants." After reading this chapter, I can now go on to add that "excess animal protein intake is linked with osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones in the urinary tract, and some cancers" (144). Eating animals is a recipe for disease, whether individually devastating, or of pandemic proportions.
I'm less worried about where I'm getting my protein from than what diseases the sick habits of this omnivorous nation have unleashed.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Addicted
I never thought it would happen. It started off harmless enough, an hour or so a day, no more. Then it become two hours, or three, and my homework started to fall to the wayside. I was losing sleep, unable to tear myself away from it.
I was addicted to that big, shiny box we call the TV.
Until now, I'd never been much of a television viewer. The occasional Discovery Channel special, or Project Runway episode when I was sick, and a movie or two when my friends were over. That was it. When people discussed reality television shows, I snorted at their silly fascination with other people's ridiculous lives. When they talked about Glee or some other plot-based show, I zoned out, failing to see the importance of a season finale or a maddening cliff-hanger.
Then a friend of mine introduced me to shows on Netflix. It started slow, with a few episodes of Big Bang Theory (the hilarious tale of a few socially inept physicist and their aspiring actress neighbor), then I got into harder stuff. Soon I was watching a season a day, and not just of Big Bang but of How I Met Your Mother, and even the occasional Better Off Ted (an older show about an optimistic single-dad and his job in a ruthless scientific research corporation).
Eventually, having run out of past seasons to catch up on, my addiction was limited to the occasional weekly episode. But how long will it be before the next relapse? That depends on whether or not there's another original idea on TV anytime soon. For now, the network is caught up in a slew of hospital dramas and law spin offs, all featuring doctors or detectives with quirky personalities. I'll pass on those. But if a network introduces a new pilot, something original and engaging, pass the remote. I'm jonesing for a new series.
I was addicted to that big, shiny box we call the TV.
Until now, I'd never been much of a television viewer. The occasional Discovery Channel special, or Project Runway episode when I was sick, and a movie or two when my friends were over. That was it. When people discussed reality television shows, I snorted at their silly fascination with other people's ridiculous lives. When they talked about Glee or some other plot-based show, I zoned out, failing to see the importance of a season finale or a maddening cliff-hanger.
Then a friend of mine introduced me to shows on Netflix. It started slow, with a few episodes of Big Bang Theory (the hilarious tale of a few socially inept physicist and their aspiring actress neighbor), then I got into harder stuff. Soon I was watching a season a day, and not just of Big Bang but of How I Met Your Mother, and even the occasional Better Off Ted (an older show about an optimistic single-dad and his job in a ruthless scientific research corporation).
Eventually, having run out of past seasons to catch up on, my addiction was limited to the occasional weekly episode. But how long will it be before the next relapse? That depends on whether or not there's another original idea on TV anytime soon. For now, the network is caught up in a slew of hospital dramas and law spin offs, all featuring doctors or detectives with quirky personalities. I'll pass on those. But if a network introduces a new pilot, something original and engaging, pass the remote. I'm jonesing for a new series.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Abolishing the Death Penalty
Society is never stagnant. It is forever learning, changing and evolving. As society becomes more advanced, why should the laws that protect it remain anchored in the past? The death penalty is a vivid example of the kind of legislation that society has simply outgrown, a fact that is being recognized by states across the nation, and in nations across the globe. This movement has made it clear that, in Illinois, there is no longer need for arbitrary, discriminatory, and excessively cruel punishments for capital offenses. The death penalty was unjust and uncivilized, and its end could not have come soon enough in Illinois.
The death penalty has the potential to kill the innocent and is therefore intolerable. In the review of death row cases in Illinois lead by Governor George Ryan, no fewer than seventeen sentences people were exonerated. In his speech on the death penalty moratorium, Ryan called these findings “an absolute embarrassment” and went on to call the capital punishment system “nothing short of a catastrophic failure.” Seventeen innocent lives would have been taken by the State, had the governor not stepped in and examined the situation. In an article presented by Michigan State University and the Death Penalty Information Center, the author highlights the finality of capital punishment, stating that it “imposes an irrevocable sentence. Once an inmate is executed, nothing can be done to make amends if a mistake has been made.” The capital punishment system is by no means perfectly accurate, as is illustrated by the seventeen exonerated inmates, and a mistake would mean that the State killed an innocent person, an infringement of human rights that cannot be tolerated. One case in particular demonstrates how frighteningly close the state of Illinois has come to executing an innocent person. Governor Ryan mentions the case of Anthony Porter, convicted of two murders and sentenced to death by lethal injection, in his speech on the moratorium. In Porter’s case, students at Northwestern University, under the direction of Professor Dave Protess, examined and investigated the events, eventually finding Porter innocent. Porter was freed just 48 hours before the needle would have taken his life. In the article “What Killed Illinois’s Death Penalty,” author Steve Mills mentions Ryan’s reaction to the Porter case. He states that Ryan “wondered how a man could come within 50 hours of being executed, only to be set free by the efforts of a journalism professor, his students, and a private investigator.” The Porter case speaks volumes about the risks of the death penalty in Illinois. For the State to continue to unwittingly kill (or attempt to kill) innocent people is a travesty of justice, and clearly violates citizen’s rights to life as outlined in the Constitution of the United States. Abolishing the death penalty is the only way to protect that right with certainty, and is therefore just.
Even if there was a way to ensure that only the guilty be executed, the death penalty is still faulty in its arbitrariness and discrimination. In the Furman v. Georgia decision, the Supreme Court concluded that “a punishment would be ‘cruel and unusual’ if it was to severe for the crime, if it was arbitrary, if it offended society’s sense of justice, or if it was not more effective than a less severe penalty” as is stated in the article “Constitutionality of the Death Penalty in America.” It cannot be denied that the death penalty is arbitrary and that it discriminates based on economic factors. The article “Arguments For and Against the Death Penalty,” states that the penalty “selects an arbitrary group based on such irrational factors as the quality of the defense counsel, the county in which the crime was committed, or the race of the defendant or victim.” There are no set standards for applying the death penalty to cases and jurors are no doubt left confused about whether to apply a sentence of life without parole or execution. This decision could be based on anything, including poor counsel. Ryan mentions in his speech that “thirty-three of the death row inmates were represented at trial by an attorney who had later been disbarred or at some point suspended from practicing law.” Good counsel is expensive, and if a defendant cannot afford good counsel, they must use what the State provides them. Ryan describes the state’s defense lawyers as somewhat apathetic when he says “they often didn’t put much effort into fighting a death sentence.” This means that if one cannot afford good counsel, they are more likely to be executed because some lawyers simply do not care to make the effort to save their client’s lives. In the Deadline video, one exonerated man describes this phenomenon as the “rich man’s justice and the poor man’s justice.” Justice ought to be blind to economic status. Justice ought to be evenly applicable, not, as Justice Potter Stewart called it, “as freakish and arbitrary as who gets hit by a bolt of lightening.” The death penalty is arbitrary and distributed randomly, and is therefore unconstitutional.
The death penalty is barbaric and society has out grown it. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the use of punishments that are cruel and unusual. The method of execution in Illinois was lethal injection, which may seem like the least cruel of the formerly accepted methods nationwide (methods such as execution by firing squad, hanging, electric chair, and the gas chamber). However, upon further inspection, lethal injection is a vile form of punishment and can be excruciating to the victim. According to the authors of Deathpenaltycurriculum.org, and the article on lethal injection, victims are injected with two needles. These contain anesthetics which put the victim to sleep, then a series of paralytic chemicals that stop breathing and the heart. If all of the procedures go smoothly, the victim will die of simultaneous cardiac and respiratory arrest. However, the procedures do not always work. Doctors cannot, due to ethical obligations, carry out executions, so inexperienced technicians are forced to complete the task. “If a member of the execution team injects the drugs into a muscle instead of a vein, or if the needle becomes clogged, extreme pain can result.” Extreme pain qualifies as cruel and unusual, and instances such as these are not at all uncommon. Capital punishment is cruel and uncivilized, and has been abandoned by, according to Ryan, “Europe, Canada, Mexico, and most of South and Central America.” Whereas the United States clings to it, along with, based on “Constitutionality of the Death Penalty in America,” China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan. . .” The United States has policies in line with several third world countries, an odd circumstance, as the nation is currently a global superpower. Trop v. Dulles lead the Court to decide that “the Eighth Amendment contained an evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society.” As the global community aboandons capital punishment, so should the United States. Capital punishment should be banned in Illinois, with the hope that the rest of the nation will soon follow suit. The United states has no place using barbaric methods of punishment, when life without parole is equally deterring to criminals and is far less morally repugnant.
Illinois’s death penalty system is flawed. It is morally objectionable, arbitrarily given, and runs the risk of committing the very crime it seeks to deter: the murder of innocent persons. It is not the role of the state of Illinois to “tinker with the machinery of death” as stated by Justice Blackmun and later Governor Ryan. It is the state’s role to punish offenders for crimes and protect society. Life without parole does this effectively and economically, leaving money to go to those who need it most: victim’s families. Illinois is correct in following the major developed countries of the world in abolishing the death penalty. It is another step towards national justice and societal progress.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Deerest
I live on the edge of the woods. As a result, my backyard is frequented by enough woodland critters to clean Snow White's house eleven times over. We get chubby raccoons, birds, the occasional coyote and deer. I must admit I'm partial to the deer. I like the bucks, their antlers rising like crowns out of their heads and the does with their big, communicative eyes and white tails; deer are pretty swell creatures to look at.
The rest of my household disagrees.
When I see deer with their faces smashed against the side of our bird-feeder, their long tongues flicking the seeds out of the slots made for jays and robins, I think "how clever!" My Mother thinks "Now I have to fill the feeder again." Then, when I catch them nibbling on the foliage in the makeshift-garden we have, I think "aww how cute!" The dog barks, and my mother comes running, trying to shoo them from the flowers. We're essentially torn on the deer issue in our house.
However, there is one component of the situation that we all agree on. Most of the deer in my area are tagged and collared. Why? Who knows. Population control? Scientific study? The reason is unclear. But whomever is doing the tagging has successfully united and horrified my entire household. Just yesterday, my mother and I saw a doe with not one, but both ears tagged, and a massive radio collar around her neck, thunking her head as she bent to munch on my mother's precious hosta. No one tried to shoo her.
I cannot understand why such excessive and cruel procedures need be taken. What is being learned from this? That deer have trouble running, eating and generally being deer when you punch holes in them and weigh them down with machinery? There is no information of any kind on the township website, nor on any other site I've checked.
Though more research, I may one day find out by whom and for what the deer are suffering. For now, though, I'll be refilling the bird-feeder.
The rest of my household disagrees.
When I see deer with their faces smashed against the side of our bird-feeder, their long tongues flicking the seeds out of the slots made for jays and robins, I think "how clever!" My Mother thinks "Now I have to fill the feeder again." Then, when I catch them nibbling on the foliage in the makeshift-garden we have, I think "aww how cute!" The dog barks, and my mother comes running, trying to shoo them from the flowers. We're essentially torn on the deer issue in our house.
However, there is one component of the situation that we all agree on. Most of the deer in my area are tagged and collared. Why? Who knows. Population control? Scientific study? The reason is unclear. But whomever is doing the tagging has successfully united and horrified my entire household. Just yesterday, my mother and I saw a doe with not one, but both ears tagged, and a massive radio collar around her neck, thunking her head as she bent to munch on my mother's precious hosta. No one tried to shoo her.
I cannot understand why such excessive and cruel procedures need be taken. What is being learned from this? That deer have trouble running, eating and generally being deer when you punch holes in them and weigh them down with machinery? There is no information of any kind on the township website, nor on any other site I've checked.
Though more research, I may one day find out by whom and for what the deer are suffering. For now, though, I'll be refilling the bird-feeder.
Eating Animals: Behind Locked Doors
This chapter of Foer's book, titled "Hiding/Seeking," had several excerpts from other writers, each telling their story about factory farms. One was a young girl, a kind of vigilante who would go on missions to farms, looking for truth. After years of sending letters of questions to food corporations, this young lady (called "C" for her protection) grew frustrated with the complete lack of reply from companies and took the quest for information about where our food comes from and the treatment of animals into her own hands. C is not a super-human. She is, according to Foer's description, "short and wispy. She wears aviator glasses, flip-flops, and a retainer" (81). C goes into farms at night. C pulls on locked doors, opens the unlocked ones, and confronts what she sees. Which means that C scales fences, wades in shit, and pulls out her knife to euthanize those animals that are too sick, or in too much pain to let live. This is not, and should never be the job of someone like C. Neither does the job belong to the corporations (we've seen and heard the horrors they allow in the dark, locked sheds, filled with sickness and death). No, it's the job of the experts. Let them be confronted with the harsh reality of our food industry. Let them, with their accustomed eyes, declare what is just and unjust for animals. I am not so naive to think that the world will suddenly become vegetarian, that people will care. People like meat, and so they will keep and kill animals. What we should be able to change, however, is how they keep and kill. There must be a better, more humane way to provide people on all budgets with the animal protein they feel they need.
Foer offers us another perspective, that of the last real turkey farmer. This man, Frank Reese, loves his turkeys. Does he still slaughter them? Yes, because he has to make a living, and people want to have turkey meat. Reese breeds natural turkeys, not one is genetically altered for more meat, or immunity to disease etc, otherwise they wouldn't survive on his actually free-range farm, where they go outside and live like real turkeys. He tells the reader, "With the modern industrial turkey it would be a mess. They couldn't survive. My guys could maneuver through a foot of snow without any trouble. And my turkeys all have their toenails; they all have their wings and beaks -- nothing's been cut off. . . Our birds exercise all day. And because their genes haven't been messed with, they have naturally strong immune systems. We never lose birds." (111). This loss of birds Reese refers to is the large-scale deaths of millions of birds each year on factory farms. Birds trampled, diseased, genetically mutilated, incinerated, etc. Industries discovered they could still make a profit on sick and dying animals, and as a result, they no longer care about the general health of flocks. We mess with the health and genetics of animals, eat them, and then become sick ourselves. We've seen a rise in "not only juvenile diabetes, but inflammatory and autoimmune diseases . . . kids are allergic to just about everything, and asthma is out of control" (112). I can't understand why people, not just corporations, but consumers, think this is acceptable. It's a vile corruption of nature, and is having detrimental effects on national health. But that's okay, because now you can have cheap turkey on thanksgiving. Rather than supporting animal rights and going vegetarian this Thanksgiving (Oh! The horror!), rather than supporting ethical farming, this holiday season, you can have a disease-ridden, painfully murdered, animal, nestled in a bed of gravy on your dining room table for pretty cheap. Doesn't that sound delicious?
Foer offers us another perspective, that of the last real turkey farmer. This man, Frank Reese, loves his turkeys. Does he still slaughter them? Yes, because he has to make a living, and people want to have turkey meat. Reese breeds natural turkeys, not one is genetically altered for more meat, or immunity to disease etc, otherwise they wouldn't survive on his actually free-range farm, where they go outside and live like real turkeys. He tells the reader, "With the modern industrial turkey it would be a mess. They couldn't survive. My guys could maneuver through a foot of snow without any trouble. And my turkeys all have their toenails; they all have their wings and beaks -- nothing's been cut off. . . Our birds exercise all day. And because their genes haven't been messed with, they have naturally strong immune systems. We never lose birds." (111). This loss of birds Reese refers to is the large-scale deaths of millions of birds each year on factory farms. Birds trampled, diseased, genetically mutilated, incinerated, etc. Industries discovered they could still make a profit on sick and dying animals, and as a result, they no longer care about the general health of flocks. We mess with the health and genetics of animals, eat them, and then become sick ourselves. We've seen a rise in "not only juvenile diabetes, but inflammatory and autoimmune diseases . . . kids are allergic to just about everything, and asthma is out of control" (112). I can't understand why people, not just corporations, but consumers, think this is acceptable. It's a vile corruption of nature, and is having detrimental effects on national health. But that's okay, because now you can have cheap turkey on thanksgiving. Rather than supporting animal rights and going vegetarian this Thanksgiving (Oh! The horror!), rather than supporting ethical farming, this holiday season, you can have a disease-ridden, painfully murdered, animal, nestled in a bed of gravy on your dining room table for pretty cheap. Doesn't that sound delicious?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)