Abortion contrary to feminist ideals, unsafe

In her letter this week, Lauren Eggert-Crowe asserted that abortion is safe. For whom, exactly, is it safe? In every abortion, one human being dies ÷ this is a medical and scientific fact. How safe can a procedure be when it is invasive, violent and, 98 percent of the time, elective?

Would anyone call elective heart surgery "safe?"

It is quite puzzling to me that the American medical community, including some of the staff and students at the UA, has the ability to, on the one hand, protect the unborn fetus as a person when it is "wanted" and, in another case, destroy that same fetus if it is "unwanted."

Are we to accept the fact that the UA medical community no longer serves the patients because they are human, but because they are "wanted?"

I thought this notion of worth based on "wanted-ness" was against feminist principles of tolerance, equality and civil rights.

Risha Zertuche
NAU alumna

Credit, not pity, due to Palestinian women

I want to thank Mr. Aaron Schulman for letting me know that I am, as a Palestinian woman, "worthless and expendable;" a fact I had never realized before. Maybe Mr. Schulman is just borrowing this stereotype from an orientalist vision about Middle Eastern women still living in the 17th century. He probably does not realize that many Palestinian women all over the world are getting their educations and competing in their professional fields.

Maybe Mr. Schulman is not aware that many Palestinian women are also among those who are suffering the most in the world due to violence imposed on them and their culture. More than 100 Palestinian women were killed by Israeli weapons between 2000 and 2002. At the same time, more than 500 lost their children ÷ not to mention the thousands of children denied the opportunity of education due to the closure of schools by the Israeli occupying forces. So it might be worth giving these women some credit for maintaining their dignity in spite of all their suffering.

It is time to stop groundless criticism of all Palestinians that liken innocent bystanders to militant extremists. Instead of taking sides, let's start working for a just and peaceful coexistence between the two parties. Security is a right that both Israeli and Palestinian women are striving for and deserve. I myself am a Palestinian refugee whose family was forced to leave home many decades ago. Yet being victimized will never give me a vehicle to victimize others. Here I am, Mr. Schulman, a Palestinian woman completing my Fulbright Fellowship, a program that aims to increase mutual understanding between the U.S. and other countries. My family and community consider me neither worthless nor expendable.

Hania Maraqa
architecture graduate student

Voting rights don't apply to combatants

I must strongly disagree with Aaron Gubi and his rant against Israel in Tuesday's Wildcat ("American Jews should condemn Israeli actions"). To propose that Israel is not a democracy because it does not allow those in the "occupied" territories to vote is ridiculous. When war is declared against a nation, as the Palestinian people have so done against Israel, common sense dictates that that nation does not extend the right to decide its fate to those seeking its demise. Fortunately for every minority in America, the citizens of the southern states were not allowed to participate in the 1864 elections. If they had been, the great state of Arizona would be among those that allowed the ownership of slaves. It is a good thing that belligerent peoples seeking to destroy nations that stand for freedom and democracy are not allowed to decide the fate of legitimate governments, as those in the anti-Israel camp propose.

Silas Montgomery
history sophomore

Legal abortion vital to ensure women's safety

Sara Stuhan says, "The idea that abortion restrictions are a major health risk is outrageous." In fact, restrictions on abortion access cause both morbidity and mortality. When abortion was illegal in this country, women still chose to terminate pregnancies, but could wind up sick, maimed or dead in the process. Poor women and women of color most often endured the terrible consequences of illegal abortion, because women of means could usually find a physician, somewhere, to help them safely terminate a pregnancy.

Many physician groups, including the AMA and ACOG, supported legalization of abortion in the early 1970s because health risks were clearly associated with restriction of access. Current restrictions on abortion, imposed by many state legislatures, also pose health risks to women. Laws such as those requiring mandatory waiting periods, parental consent and prohibition of state and federal funding for abortion-related care cause pregnancy termination to be unnecessarily delayed. For some women, this delay pushes the timing of abortion from the first trimester into the second, when there is greater risk for medical complications. Restrictions on access can also cause a great deal of mental anguish, because women who have made the difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy are subsequently forced to navigate logistic and bureaucratic hurdles in order to receive the service. Abortion is still legal in this country. However, if we do not rear physicians willing and able to perform abortions, it may as well be illegal. Medical students and residents need education and training in abortion to ensure the future health and well being of women everywhere, including Arizona. The one million women who undergo abortion each year in the U.S. are our mothers, sisters, daughters and friends. Let us not force them to suffer the consequences of carrying unwanted, unplanned or ill-timed pregnancies.

Susie Baldwin, MD, MPH
assistant clinical professor, obstetrics and gynecology

Wilson incorrect; smoking ban violates owners' rights

I often find that Kendrick Wilson's columns either contain lies or miss the point. However, his anti-smoking column is a real treat, since it does both. First I will address his lie. He states, "There is little question that secondhand smoke leads to cancer and other serious health problems." This is blatantly untrue; in fact, there is a big question as to whether this is the case. The source of my claim is the only study ever conducted on a wide enough scale to offer definitive evidence.

James F. Enstrom and Geoffrey C. Kabat studied 118,000 adult smokers and their spouses over a 39-year period in California, and found no causal link between secondhand smoke and illness. What is the source of Mr. Wilson's claim? Perhaps it is the same as his source that claimed 11,000 accidental gun deaths per year, a figure later corrected in that tiny little corrections box to 800. So which is it, Mr. Wilson, do you make up your "facts" as needed, or is there some whacko Internet site that specializes in special little statistics for special little people?

As for missing the point, he talks about the need to protect workers and patrons of public establishments like bars and restaurants. This line of argument misses the point because the real issue is rights. These are not public places like universities or government buildings where it would presumably be permissible to ban smoking for being a nuisance, regardless of whether it were a health risk.

Restaurants and bars are privately owned establishments open to the public. To ban smoking there is to trample the private property rights of the owner, a grave

injustice in our society. Workers and patrons who want protection from secondhand smoke may protect themselves at any time by exercising their own right to work or dine elsewhere. Rights are the issue here, not crusades to support political agendas. There was a point right there; I hope Mr. Wilson didn't miss it.

Perhaps Mr. Wilson isn't a threat to the Wildcat's integrity, since he is confined to the opinions page, but he is a threat to his own integrity and to that of anyone who takes his columns at face value. Whatever you do, please take Mr. Wilson with a grain of salt.

W.M. Johnson
philosophy junior

Snodgrass-terrorism link baseless, egregiously drawn

As a good friend of Paul Snodgrass, who was very distressed by his ordeal, I found the Wildcat article about him to be grossly irresponsible. Paul went to Bir Zeit University after consulting carefully with both his professors and the university administration in order to verify that he could transfer credits to the UA from Bir Zeit and that other UA students had successfully attended that university in the past. To assert ÷ as the Israeli consulate does ÷ that "Bir Zeit students go to school to learn how to build bombs, the only thing coming out of there is a terrorist (sic)" is to imply that the UA administration and faculty are terrorist accomplices.

As for the director of Tucson's Israel Center associating Paul with terrorism, not to mention his comparison of his university activism to al-Qaeda, these accusations are too idiotic to deserve a comment. Anyone interested in Paul's version of the story can check http://www.apjme.org/paul.html.The Wildcat decided to leave most of these details out to make room for comments by people who, by their own admission, have no knowledge of either Paul or what happened to him in Israel.

Giorgio Torrieri
physics graduate student

Faulty ASUA process stands between clubs and funding

My letter is in response to Ms. Crudo's article, "Clubs don't ask for money" in Monday's Wildcat. As a student club leader for the past two years, I am familiar with the ASUA funding process. Ms. Crudo is incorrect to state that clubs don't "seem to want" the money ASUA has to offer.

From past experience, I can personally attest to the fact that applying for funding through ASUA is a long, tedious and time-consuming process. Perhaps if the ASUA representatives devised a way of making this process easier, then they wouldn't have such an abundance of funding.

The process seems inefficient and difficult. Our club was approved once, but only after several trips to the ASUA office, calls from ASUA reps and a lot of paperwork ÷ all for $300! I suggest Ms. Crudo interview a club that has tried to apply for the funding and ask them why they think there is so much ASUA money that it unapplied for. Hopefully the funding process will begin to be more club-friendly in the future.

Julie Kinzy
finance senior

Responsibility needed from all sides of Mideast conflict

This letter is in response to Aaron Gubi's call for American Jews to condemn Israeli actions. I am Jewish, and I have not agreed with many of the actions of Israel since I lived there in 1999. This is not to say that I have completely disagreed with its actions either.

The only thing I can say is that both sides in the conflict are at fault. The problem will not be solved in the Middle East until both sides can swallow their pride and look at their neighbors as friends instead of enemies. When I lived in Israel, I was shocked at the extreme racism both sides portrayed towards each other. An Israeli roommate told me that his only regret from his three years of army service was having never shot an Arab. This is the same guy that would tell me day in and day out that he dreamt of peace. Such is a problem for soldiers in the army. The name of "security" gives them free reign to shoot whomever they please.

As for the Palestinian side, cheering on the streets when a suicide bomber successfully blows up a bus containing dozens of orthodox men, women and children is just as terrible. This only encourages more suicide bombings. As for deporting Paul Snodgrass, Israel was only watching its back. In the mind of the legitimate Israeli security officials (of which there are many), Mr. Snodgrass could have been the next suicide bomber that killed their mother, son or friend, or he could have been a legitimate student going to further his education. Israel cannot afford to take that chance.

The last Palestinian suicide bomber in Israel was a father of two. He was a student about to finish his master's degree. He was not your "run-of-the-mill" suicide bomber. The security officials were only doing their job, which is to protect the citizens of their country. I will not attempt to offer a solution to this problem for the simple reason that it has gone on for thousands of years. This has always been a turbulent area, and it will be long after our generation is laid to rest. This is especially true if neither side can take responsibility for the evil actions that it has committed upon the other. As the old adage goes, it takes two to tango.

Jakob Schanzer
chemistry senior