Page 4-Saturday July 7, 1979-The Michigan Daily
HMichigan Daily
Eighty-nine Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, Mi. 48109
Vol. LXXXIX, No. 39-S News Phone: 7640552
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
Abortion funds
remain in danger
ANTI-ABORTION state senators, unable to alter
the constitutionality of legislative procedure,
have been doggedly attempting the deplorable
task of eliminating Medicaid funds for abortions.
The impact of the action they are suing Gov.
William Milliken to effect would permit abortions
for only those women who can afford them, while
denying abortions to the less fortunate.
Milliken's heroic efforts to maintain Medicaid
funding for this purpose are laudable. He has
twice vetoed bills that would have discontinued
the program. Furthermore, any legal actions un-
dertaken to retain this service with equity are
justified.
Much political maneuvering has surrounded
this emotional conflict, pushing parties on both
sides to the brink of legality. The Senate ap-
propriated $1 for the program, knowing that cut-
ting it entirely would be greeted with yet another
veto from the governor's office. Milliken struck
down the $1 limit anyway, and this freed the
previous level of funding for welfare abortions,
because the Senate failed to muster the necessary
two-thirds vote to override the veto.
A majority of the Senate voted to join the
lawsuit against the governor initiated by Rep.
Thaddeus Stopczynski (D-Detroit). The suit
charges Milliken with exceeding his constitutional
authority by vetoing the $1 appropriation, claiming
that the chief executive of the state cannot ap-
propriate funds-his action's net effect. Several
senators who voted to join the suit said they do not
oppose abortion, but are concerned with the con-
stitutional question raised by the governor's ac-
tions.
The entire Senate is represented in the lawsuit,
and their reasons for joining are muffled by the
collectivity of that action. It would have been
more appropriate for individual senators to have
added their names to the suit, instead of lumping
those who do not support the elimination of the
program with those who do.
Both houses have agreed to welfare budget bills
prohibiting the use of Medicaid funds for abor-
tions. It is expected Gov. Milliken will veto the bill
limiting the total amount of Medicaid money, as
he did last year, if upheld by the courts.
The efforts of Milliken are praiseworthy, and
seem fair enough in the political framework. Now
the Michigan Appeals Court must decide if they
were proper enough to maintain equal access to
abortions.
SUMMER EDITORIAL STAFF
ELIZABETH SLOWIK
dior-inChif
I
Letters to the j
U.S. Economy
To the Daily:
Is the U.S. economy in another
recession? Some capitalist
economists may still be trying to
make up their minds, but a
majority of workers already
believe that the long-awaited
economic downturn is here. Ac-
cording to a recent ABC News-
Harris Survey, 58 per cent of the
American people believe the
country is now in a recession. An
even larger majority, 62 per cent,
believe that a year from now the
country will still be in the throes
of a recession.
For many workers, the
question of whether capitalism
has entered a new recession is, of
course, academic, For them, the
last one never ended. At the onset
of a new recession, the official
unemployment rate is already
near six per cent. At the same
time the official jobless rate for
black workers is more than
double that. In the meantime, in-
flation has soared to an annual
rate of nearly 14 per cent exacer-
bating the lives of workers
everywhere trying to cope with
ever-rising prices.'The economic
contradictions of capitalism, ac-
cording to the Socialist Labor
Party, preclude any permanent
solution to the grave problems
confronting society today. Only
Socialism (not the phoney setup
they have in Russia) with its
production for use instead of for
profit and social ownership of in-
dustries managed and controlled
by the worker-producers them-
selves holds any promise for a
solution to unemployment,
crime, inflation, and the threat of
war.
-Archie Sim
Nuclear Legislation
To the Daily:
The time has come to take a
long hard look at the nuclear
power industry and the
legislation protecting it from
unlimited liability in the event of
a nuclear disaster.
Presently, the Weiss Bill is
before Congress, which would
repeal the Price-Anderson Act
which places a ceiling on the
liability of a utility, no matter
how disastrous an accident
should occur. If nuclear power is
the safe form of energy that
Detroit Edison would have us
believe it is, why shouldn't they
No
Comment
accept the full financial respon-
sibility in the event of an -ac-
cident, just as the airlines and
chemical companies are required
to do?
It's also about time to study
nuclear power and its long term
environmental effect rather than
continue the building of plants,
apparently without heed to the
general public good and without
considering viable alternatives
such as solar power. There is also
a bill before Congress which calls
for a five-year moratorium on the
building of new nuclear power
plants across the country, called
the Fish Bill. This bill would give
us a chance to give nuclear power
the scrutinizing that it should
have had long before now.
In a sample survey conducted
in Washtenaw County by the
Public Interest Research Group
in Michigan (PIRGIM), it was
found that the residents are very
much in favor of both the repeal
Daily
of the Price-Anderson Act and the
passage of the Fish Bill. (The
actual results were: For the
repeal of the Price-Anderson
Act-78 per cent yes, 12 per cent
no, and nine per cent undecided;
and for the Fish Bill-68 per cent
yes, 20 per cent no, and 11 per
cent undecided) .
It is now up to our
Congressman, Carl Pursell, to
listen to the voice of his con-
stituency and co-sponsor the
repeal of the Price-Anderson Act
and the passage of the Fish Bill.
The residents of Washtenaw
County have called for a
reassessment of nuclear power
and it's up to Rep. Pursell to let
our feelings be known in
Washington. Write Congressman
Pursell in Washington, or call his
Ann Arbor office (971-5760) to let
him know that we want action
now.
-Grant Sutton
Editorials which appear without a byline
represent a concensus opinion of the Daily's
editorial board. All other editorials, as well as
cartoons, are the opinions of the individual who
submit them.
ADMINISTRATION GAS
Editor's note: This item
appeared in the New York
Times, January 10, 1939. It
appears courtesy of Associate
Prof. Rudolf Schmerl in the
School of Education.
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 9
(AP)-The University of Mich-
igan board in control of physical
education proposed today that
colleges which subsidize athletes
or award "athletic scholarships"
be barred from membership in
the National Collegiate Athletic
Association.
The proposal, contained .in a
RATION CUPON
twenty-page report signed by
Chairman Ralph W. Aigler,said
college teams of "scholarship
holders and the like" should be
"grouped with the New York
Giants and the Washington Red-
skins" and asserted that
"professional and semi-
professional teams" should "play
among themselves."
"Sooner or later," the report
said, "there must be a separation
of those institutions which look
upon intercollegiate athletics as
mere adjuncts of educational
programs from those whose
teams are made up of hired per-
formers.'
JUDY RAKQWSKY .....,. ... ........
JOSHUA PECK.....................
MARK PARRENT Supplement
EditorialDirector
........ Arts Editor
MITCH CANTOR
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