Page 4-Thursday, December 6, 1979-The Michigan Daily U.S. imperialism cause of Iran unrest Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom i Vol. LXX) " - News Phone: 764-0552 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Funding for abortions EVER SINCE Congress passed the Hyde Amendment; the 1976 legislation that banned Medicaid fun- ding of most abortions, pro-choice groups have waged a thankless battle against this discriminatory policy. However the Supreme Court's recent announcement that it would hear arguments next spring on the con- stitutionality of denying Medicaid financing for abortions considered medically necessary provides the op- portunity to abolish at last this inhumane law. The Justices' action stemmed from the decision of a United States District Court in Illinois last April that ad- mirably declared unconstitutional the Hyde Amendment by asserting that the state does not have a legitimate in- terest in preserving the life of a non- viable fetus at the expense of the mother's health (the Hyde Amen- dment terminatred public funding for abortions except in cases which the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest or threatened the mother's life). This lower court decision prompted three appeals, one from the federal gover- nment, arguing that Congress has a strong and legitimate interest in promoting childbirth. Note that Congress is largely made up of men who will never feel the pain or be physically or mentally debilitated from carryng a baby. The most recent Gallup poll in April of 1979 found that 54 per cent of the respondents believe abortions should be legal under certain circumstances, 78 per cent when the life of the mother is endangered, 59 per cent when it would be detrimental to her mental or physical health, and 53 per cent when the pregnancy is the result of rape-or incest The racist Hyde-Amendment denies Medicaid recipients, most of whom are poor members of minorities, the right to exercise the constitutional right to have an abortion on request. Of course, rich women, unlike the poor, need not resort to life-risking self-abortions or black market abortionists because they can afford $175 for the early term suction abortion or the $400 to $1300 for the late-term saline abortion. The old version of the Hyde Amen- dment allowed funding for abortions in cases which the pregnancy would result in "severe and long-lasting physical health damage." But earlier this year Congress adopted a new ver- sion which eliminated this exception. It is unjust and perhaps unconstitutional for the government to refuse to pay for medically necessary abortions when it pays for all other medically necessary procedures for women who are eligible for Medicaid. It is apparent that in formulating this policy that Congress did not con- sider heavily the health of women who have to spend the nine months of their pregnancy in bed, women whose children will be still born or die shortly after birth, and women who may be too young or old to have a child. Furthermore, the Hyde Amendment stems from the Catholic Dogma that life begins at the moment of conception. and the fetus should be preserved regardless of the mother's health and welfare. The problem with this stand is that it discriminates against non- Catholics who beleive abortion is proper is a mother will not be able to provide for her child. Since the federal government filed one of the appeals, President Carter, as well as the other 1980 Presidential candidates, must voice his opinion on the highly emotional abortion issue. When the time comes, the Supreme Court must rule in favor of Medicaid funding for medically necessary abor- tions. But given the conservtiveness of the Court, it is unlikely that it will rule on behalf of welfare abortions. The public must make it clear by writing to the -.media, the Supreme Court Justices, and to their Congressmen, and by participating peacefully in pro- choice demonstrations, that it is time to abolish this backwards and discriminatory policy. The embassy occupation and the taking of American hostages in Iran had both revitalized waning popular support for the theocratic regime of Ayatollah Khomeini in his country, and sparked a frenzy of patriotic ..chauvinism in the U.S. unmatched in three decades. Khomeini has his thousands of demonstrators back in the streets of Tehran demanding the extradition of the bloody ex- dictator, Shah Reza Pahlavi, while the ayatollah's crazy antics have fueled a backlask of super-patriotic, flag-waving protests on the campuses and in the streets across America. The Iran embassy crisis has even accomplished the miracle feat of tem- porarily bolstering the image of the desparate Jimmy Carter as a "natonal leader." As Marxists, we shed no tears for the em- bassy hostages, a motley crew of imperialist diplomats, CIA/NSA agents and Marine lifers. Khomeini has correctly branded the embassy as a "nest of spies"-which is business as usual for capitalist diplomacy. But that is not how most Americans view it; they know that the hostages are primarily held by the followers of the maniacal mullahs simply because they are American. A com- bintion of identification with the hostages as American nationals and a real alienation =from the Iranian society where alcohol, movies, music, sunbathing, homosexuality and .most things associated with a post- medieval lifestyle are ruthlessly purged, has aided in driving Americans into the current dangerous pro-U.S. reaction. THE AMERICAN government has gleefully seized on this and his sought to mobilize popular support for racist round-ups and economic trade sanctions against Khomeini's theocratic state-channelling the frustration and anger of the American people against the "foreign devils." Carter has already ordered the 50,000 to 100,000 Iranian stuents to report to immigration offices, threatening to deport those found to be "illegally here" and the INS has begun to in- By The Spartacus Youth League vade the campuses to begin the round-up. While the students who hailed the ayatollah should have no complaints about returning to join the "Islamic Revolution,' such expulsion orders would particularly be applied against those who opposed both the shah and Khomeini. If deported they would face 'revolutionary tribunals" at the hands of the Pasadars, who are no less sinister than the shah's SAVAK. The threatened police state round-up recalls the 1919-1920 Palmer Raids against foreign born communists and labor militants, and the racist persecution of Japanese-Americans during World War II. 160,000 of them were incarcerated in American concentration camps. These draconian reregistration/deportation orders must be opposed by all those who defend democratic rights! The Pentagon has created a 110,000-man "Rapid Deployment Force," and recently announced that the aircraft carrier Midway and five other warships are standing by in the Arabian Sea, while the Kitty Hawk is sailing from the Philippines. Washington may well decide to write off the hostages and teach the upstart mullahs a real lesson in imperialist diplomacy. Revolutionaries and the American working class must militantly op- pose military action by U.S. imperialism against Iran. U.S. Hands Off Iran! In contrast to what many American leftists would have us believe, the mullahs have not been waging a struggle against imperialism at all. On the contrary, Khomeini's gover- nment has most recently been negotiating -with Washington for resumption of billions of dollars in military aid to be used against Kur- dish rebels, Arab oil workers, Iranian leftists and the Soviet Union. The Tehran embassy seizure and hostage taking was a diversion. It was fundamentally an attempt to refurbish,; Khomeini's anti-shah credentials in a period of growing disillusionment with, and op- position to, his clerical-reactionary rule. The Carter administration has sought an under- standing with Khomeini for the same reason he unconditionally backed the shah: as the best hope to create a strong centralzied Per- sian anti-communist regime on the Soveit Union's southern flank. It is U.S. imperialism which created Khomeini, by helping the shah crush the labor movement and the pro- Moscow Tudeh party and thereby leaving the mullahs an open field as the main organized opposition to the bloody autocrat. As for the deposed monarch, we are in favor of the shah getting his just desserts and op- pose any attempt to grant him asylum in the U.S. or elsewhere. Certainly the. Iranian masses deserve to be able to determine the fate of the murderous shah. But the tyrant-in- power is no less guilty of crimes than his predecessor. The Kurds, Arabs, women and working class will also want to ensure that, Khomeini pays for his atrocities against the Iranian working class and oppressed. It is only through proletarian revolution, led by an. Iranian Trotskyist party, that the oppressed, can break the chains of imperialism and Islamic obscurantism and emancipate them- selves from the shahs and ayatollahs forever. In the U.S., with the bottom falling out of the economy, the oil cartels jacking up gasoline prices sky high and unemployment reacing new levels, there is plenty to be mad about. don't get suckered into disgusting American chauvinism! The American people have every interest in replacing q gover- nment that props up vicious dictators like Pinochet, the shah and Khomeini with a government-of the working-jl!ss. Hate the shah? Hate Khomeini? Then hate U.S. im- perialism! Spacey Jane By Tom Stevens - "9 f f .... SEE YQofON T"NE CE LIrNG S E ./ Ti WELCOME TO OUR NEW, US. CAMBER OF COMMERCE, SUNdAY TALK SNOW "IT'S YOUR BUSINESS" WERE 'S YOUR MOD~ERATOR, HER5 NOOBER ! THANK YOUJOI-(N 7ERBPERI4APS WE SHOULD EXPLAIN BAT 8ECAUSE OF THE RAMPANT BIAS OF OTHER TALK SHOWS. 5 '/,' I-OD Dl~UM~ 1A1AT hmmU %' Ot i IA + /I I 1^gq R l 'ti"'L 1 \ / Q Letters to the Daily IJ - - -ftft.-.04 Of ...TNIS IS AN EFFORT TO PUT BUSINESS IN rTE PROPER PERSPECTIVE' - RIGNT, JOAN! WE'LL LOOK AT BOTH SIDES OF THE ISSUE! rTHE MILSAUKEE JOURNAL OK, HERB ! WHO 15 OUR FIRST 50CIALIST, BLEEDING HEART, LIBERAL GUE5T TOAA4' 2 i E To the Daily: The anti-Iranian hysteria that was evidenced last week on the University of Michigan campus was deplorable. While blatant racism and chauvinism is not new to the U.S. society at large, it is somewhat unusual to see them so openly expressed on our cam- pus. Just last year a poignant photo exhibition at the Michigan Union depicted a shameful episode in our history, the incar- ceration of thousands of Japanese- Americans in concen- tration camps during World War II. The message of the display was clear: the United States can and did act with vicious racism in a time of crisis. It was the per- sonal bigotry of many U.S. citizens, fueled by an irrespon- sible propaganda campaign of the U.S. government, that allowed our enemy to be iden- tified as the Japanese race, regardless of the political af- filiations of the individuals in- volved. Judging from the recent anti- Iranian hysteria, certain local residents sem tn h ine inable nf are racist, and potentially just as harmful as was the anti-Japanese hysteria during WW II. To blame Iranians just because they are Iranians is logically indefensible and morally reprehensible. Even if one were not convinced by moral or logical arguments alone, a quick look at recent history shows that attacks on Iranians are at best misdirected. If one feels compelled to pinpoint the ultimate cause for the current situation one would be better off looking to the U.S. government rather than students and other people who happen to be from Iran. The U.S. government originally installed the shah in Iran. The U.S. government sup- ported the shah's Iran militarily, economically, and diplomatically, during the time that it was commonly recognized as one of the most repressive police states in ,the world. And finally, to add insult to injury, the U.S. effectively gave the shah political asylum (under the guise that appropriate medical treat- ment was available in the U.S.) D. Rucknagel, Prof. Human Gen. J. Samoff, Lect. CAAS and Res. College A. Schwartz, Assoc. Prof. Math. M. Taussig, Assoc. Prof. Anthro. J. Vandermeer, Assoc. Prof. Bio. A. Wald, Asst. Prof. End. A. Zweifler, Prof. Int. Med. To the Daily: Prof. Kenneth Luther says, "It is ironic that while Americans aren't injured or vilified in Iran, Iranians are vilified and harrassed in the U.S." Can he be serious? Right now Americans are being held hostage in Iran, while mobs chant "Death to Americans" and the Ayatollah talks darkly of trial and punishment. Vilification and harassment are never justified. But suppose Prof. Luther had to choose - between receiving a harrassing telephone call late at night, or being held hostage under daily threat of death. Need we guess' which he'd prefer? Neither' form of xenophobia belongs in a civilized world, but dubious "ironies" of this calibre do nothing to dispel the chauvinism which already per- vades the whole issue. Mary Kay Murray Muslim attitude toward justice and the Christian one, involving their tendencies to apply respec- tively the concepts of accoun- tability and forgiveness to the issue. While this general distin- ction is certainly correct and im- portant to know, the comments made on "Christian forgiveness" left the impression that is was basically perceived as a forgive and forget attitude of niceness or meekness. Might it not rather be that the Christian frame of mind here involves a valid- fear of taking up and prosecuting certain just causes and through one's own self-righteousness turning them into instruments of evil? What might need to be ap- preciated then, it seems, is an element of selft-doubt, perhaps essentially "Christian", which extends not merely to the level of acts but deeper to that of inten- tions and potential, thereby resisting the inclination to separate people into exclusinve camps of good and evil-which Islam, as Khomeini reads it at least, seems prone to. The Iranian people deserve tremendous sympathy from us for the justness of their grievan- ce, but in so far as the element of self-confident pride infects their attitudes, and that of their leader, therehv nonlrizini the isse at _. . tw e t t ti EDITORIAL STAFF Sue Warner. ... .........................EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Richard Berke,. Julie Rovner .......... MANAGING EDITORS Michael Arkush, Keith Richburg....EDITORIAL DIRECTORS Brian Blanchard....................... UNIVERSITY EDITOR Judy Rakowsky...... .................CITY EDITOR Shelley Wolson......................PERSONNEL DIRECTOR Amy Saltzman...................... FEATURES EDITOR Leonard Bernstein.......................SPECIAL PROJECTS Ra mi .Er .ic o.. ......... ARTS EDITORS 1979-80 SPORTS STAFF SENIOR EDITORS: GEOFF LARCOM ................ Sports Editor BILLY SAHN... ...... .. ... Executive Sports Editor BILLY NEFF ................................ Managing Editor DAN PERRIN............................... Managing Editor NIGHT EDITORS: Mark Borowski, Stan Bradbury, Bob Emory, Al Fanger, Elisa Frye, Dave Johnson, Lee Katterman, Gary Levy, Scott M. Lewis. Mark Mihanovic. Jon Wells. z