4 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, January 30, 1995 hIe *irbipn Daligu JAES R.C"HO BENEATH THE PALIMPSEST 420 Maynard Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by f students at the University of Michigan MICHAEL ROSENBERG Editor in Chief JuLIE BECKER JAMES NASH Editorial Page Editors Conceiving life after death: A whole new Perspective Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority of the Daily's editorial botird. All other articles, letters, and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. Moderate and rational Editorial page wants to speak your voice Tn the Graduate Library, there sits a book Iwiththe following line: "Liberal opinion usually tends to be moderate and rational." In the margin next to this statement is a note jotted by some long-ago student: "He must have written for the Daily." Such is the legacy of the student newspa- per on this campus. In its 104 years at the University, the Daily has been many things to many people. To some students, it has been a voice for their opinions and questions, while to others it has been "that Commie rag." To administrators, it has been a persistent nui- sance, encouraging resistance to restrictive policies that might otherwise have slipped by unchallenged. To local politicians, it has been a reminder that student concerns are their concerns also, that they cannot dismiss stu- dents as politically ignorant and apathetic. But to no reader, throughout the turbulent years of its history, has the Daily ever pre- sented itself as anything but liberal. Even today, as Republicans assert their newfound control of the U.S. Congress and many local units of government, the Daily will not stray from its long-standing ideals. To us, liberal- ism is not the ideology of weighty bureau- cracy. Rather, it is a set of principles that ensures individual freedom. As we begin our work as Editorial Page editors, we will con- tinue to be a voice for economic justice, for civil liberties, for equal rights and equal op- portunities. But more than any of these things, we will continue to be a voice for students. Now as in the past, students are finding their freedoms under attack from a Univer- sity that apparently is more concerned with maintaining order than allowing student ex- pression. Among others, the Alcohol Policy, the Social Events Policy and - most oppres- sive of all-- the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities demonstrate the University's desire to manipulate students' lives. The editorial page is one of the few places where students regularly examine and criticize this control. Our focus on this page will continue to be local issues. However, we cannot overlook state and national affairs that touch students' lives - and there are many. From state appropriations to abortion restriction, from health care to taxes, decisions outside of Ann Arbor have meaningful consequences for those who live here. We intend to explore those consequences, offering a uniquely stu- dent perspective. Yet the Daily has never claimed to repre- sent the entire student body. Only individual students can represent themselves, and we will provide ways for you to do that. Each week, we will list forums in which student opinion is solicited, and each day you will find an address of a person whose actions impact students. Taking advantage of this information is one way to voice your opin- ion; participating in the Daily - whether as an editorial writer or by writing letters - is another. The Daily editorial page is the most pub- lic and permanent forum in which students can voice their concerns. Years from now, when those who write for this page and all who read it have long since left the Univer- sity, these pages will remain, a record of student opinion on the events and issues of the day. And while times and political cur- rents will surely change, we hope to be re- membered as moderate and rational - a brand of liberalism that will be our hallmark in the year ahead. - Julie Becker and James Nash Editorial Page editors In the brave new world of reproductive technology, the orgasmic procreation of progeny is the main objective. But what about creating life after death? Like many advances in medical technology, a new technique has arrived almost unexpect- edly leaving doctors, lawyers and society with their pants down and without time to sift through the potentially steamy legal and ethical consequences. This newest procedure, which borders on necrophilia, allows women to procreate using sperm from their deceased husbands. Two uncanny cases took place in the past two weeks in which sperm was ex- tracted from recently deceased husbands, for use in possible future artificial insemi- nation of the widow. In New York, a 29-year-old woman whose husband of 2 1/2 years died had sperm extracted from the corpse in hopes of one day having the children they had always wanted. In a similar case last Saturday, a man was killed in a car accident near Chicago. At the request of the widow, a doctor harvested sperm from the dead man's body; they had been married only for a couple of months and were childless. Sperm remains viable up to 24 hours after death. In the 15-minute sperm ex- traction procedure, the live sperm is squeezed out of the corpse and placed in cold storage. In theory, the sperm can be kept alive forever. Standard fertilization procedures in- volve mixing sperm and eggs in sterile dishes and hoping penetration and fertili- zation occur. The technique, called intra- cytoplasmic sperm injection, developed less than two years ago, involves injecting the sperm cell directly into the egg. There are no known cases where insemination has been attempted with sperm obtained from a corpse. Without this new proce- dure, however, there would be little rea- son to extract sperm posthumously as the chances of fertilization using standard methods are so slim, scientists say. Defying death by keeping a husband's sperm alive is simply mind-boggling. Le- gal and moral questions must be answered. In Louisiana, a woman was denied Social Security benefits for a child she conceived after her husband's death using sperm he had donated while alive. Louisi- ana law does not recognize children con- ceived after a father's death. Artificial insemination using the husband's frozen semen raises probate questions. Can the sperm be regarded as "property" and thus remain part of the estate that the wife inherits? Is the semen an object of commercial transaction that has become the property of the fertility center? If insemination is accomplished by posthumous use of the husband's cryopreserved semen, what right does the resulting child have to the father's estate; and how will those rights be protected? There are no reported cases in the United States addressing the disposition of cryopreserved semen remaining or recov- ered after a man's death. Again medical technology has created an ethical dilemma that couldn't have ex- isted before. When does a man die if the sperm can be preserved? A societal bias exists against single par- enthood and in favor of fatherhood. Is it fair to bring the child into existence? Susanna Bahng, a third-year Inteflex student, said, "I feel like it's ideal for the child to have a mom and a dad in a family. Growing up in this world is so hard as it is. "In divorce, the parents didn't plan it that way. Something just happens. But in this case, it's very planned; that the child would have no father. Everything is stacked against the child without a living father." Allowing life to persist after death seems selfish and inhumane. There is noth- ing inherently wrong with technology - we use it for our own vested interests. We place more emphasis on the fact-the child has to "be our own," that it's a manifesta- tion of our own genes, than on raising a child for the love and joy it brings. At the same time, with the death of the husband, the widow can still live with the man she loved through the child. Whether the obstacle is impotency or infertility, or even death of a spouse, medi- cal technology has made it possible for more couples to procreate. Before the use of this technology becomes widespread and sperm mongers flock to community morgues, armed with surgical knives, steps must be taken to prevent such an orgy; it is time to consider the implications of this bizarre scenario. - Cho is an LSA junior and a former Daily news editor. Contact him with your comments at jcho@umich.edu. JIMILASSER SHARP As TOAST M&II6AW PA/IA- -ht vs' A Xi' 'J 1 t. NOTABLE QUOTABLE "The role of the press was to serve the governed, not the governors." -Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, writing for the majority in NewYork Times v. United States (1971) S. Making amends Tonight's the night for code changes T onight is an important night for Univer- sity students. If they have any interest in what they will and will not be able to do with their lives, students will pay close attention to the proceedings at tonight's code amend- ment hearing. The code, formally known as the State- ment of Student Rights and Responsibilities, is the focus of heated debate between student groups and the administration. Accumulat- ing amidst the dissent, almost 200 amend- ments may go before a student panel tonight. Many of these amendments are semantic quibbles, but others are vastly far-reaching. Tonight students will finally have a say on what the code dictates. Or will they? This amendment process already has been attempted three times. On each prior occa- sion, a quorum -26 of the 50 members on the student judiciary - failed to show. The code states in Section 10B, "If less than 26 members are present, no action may be taken." The students of this judicial board must at- tend tonight, or - through their apathy - sabotage this student-empowering process. If enough panelists do attend, their ap- proved amendments will be forwarded to the Board of Regents for a second and final review. Their participation in this hearing is only one step in the process, but it is the most important step for students. If 26 students cannot even make one meeting, the adminis- tration has a good excuse to cut student involvement. Perhaps the new process will involve 15 students. Or why not just five? The lower the number, the less student influ- ence. A fourth failure might even encourage the regents to amend the code themselves, thereby eliminating student involvement in the process. Friday's code hearing, the first public proceeding under the statement, underscored the deep flaws with the process. The hearing was announced open only an hour before it began - and only under the threat of a lawsuit from the defendant. And once under way, the hearing was conducted clumsily, with vague pronouncements from Univer- sity officials about "protecting the integrity" of the hearing. The bungled code hearing is yet another example of a process gone awry - and one desperately in need of change. The University cannot be trusted to amend the code in students' interests; instead, stu- dents themselves must get involved. On previous nights, weather or short no- tice has been an excuse. However, there are no excuses for missing tonight's meeting. If these students are absent tonight, it will only be because they do not care - about their fellow students, about themselves and about the future of the University. Students of the judicial board: Do not let your peers down. LETTERS Daily's bias revealed in Israel article To the Daily: The Daily's coverage of last Sunday's bombing in Israel re- veals the ignorance and preju- dicial leanings of the Daily re- porter and the general political bias of the Daily as a whole. Even the headline of the article, "Despite bombing, campus groups foster dialogue," is de- ceiving. The two groups in- cluded in this "dialogue," the Palestinian Solidarity Commit- tee (PSC) and the Progressive Zionist Caucus (PZC), seem to share a single opinion on the matter of the bombings: the 18- and 19-year old children who were torn to shreds by the bombs are of minor significance and a reasonable price to pay for the "crime" of Jewish self-defense. This "crime" is based on the sentiment that if others are in- convenienced by the act of Jews defending themselves, then the Jews must lay back and be killed rather than cause that inconve- nience. In my vernacular such a singular opinion is termed a monologue and not a dialogue. Ms. Khytam Dawood, a PSC member, explained that the pur- pose of the current collabora- ter 29 Arabs were killed in Hebron (not 48 as the Daily exaggerated), the groups failed to join the call for peace when 22 Jews were killed in the Tel Aviv bus bombing in October. For many anti-Semites the Hebron killings represented a unique opportunity to "prove" the truth of Jewish schemes for world domination that are de- scribed in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," an anti-Semitic diatribe which is touted by Hamas in its covenant. Hamas, which calls for the systematic murder of all Jews in Israel, is now, unfortunately, supported by a majority of Palestinians in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Ms. Dawood further trivialized the violence with her ignorant claim that "There has been violence going on for 26 years. Both sides condemn vio- lence from either side." The vio- lence has actually been going on for centuries since the Arabs conquered Israel in 636 and started mass slaughter and de- portation of Jews. Since that time, many, many Arabs have enjoyed extremely cordial rela- tionships with Jews. Unfortu- nately, those Arabs who insist on hate have made life hellish for Jews and peace-minded Ar- abs alike. During World War II, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the GlrrndlMufti of Ten1Qs.em Pven Declaration of Principles even the ruling PLO has failed to form a consensus to condemn terrorism or renounce their "Phased Plan," in which they state that a temporary peace agreement may be reached with Israel in a deceptive maneuver with the ultimate intention of conquering Israel as a whole. Peace is intended to save lives and should be the goal of every moral-minded person on the face of this planet. How- ever, any "peace" that costs more lives than it saves is fun- damentally flawed and must be reconsidered. Cold-blooded murder is not a price of true peace and should not be por- trayed as such by the Daily. Aryeh M. Caroline LSA junior Cartoonist entitled to free speech To the Daily: . At the risk of beating a long- dead horse (though this certainly would set no precedent on this page), I would like to respond to the letter from Mr. William A. Donohue regarding Jim Lasser's infamous "Gingrich and Priests" cartoon ("Cartoon offends Catholics," 1/26/95). As presi- Ac.,t o tp.f n~ Xthrnliir TI ai. rf Mr. Donohue took offense at the cartoon, whose sole purpose he supposes to have been to "insult Catholics." While many Catholics have indeed expressed their offense . at the cartoon, any truly "hon- est" readers would see that part of the reason that it is so dis- comforting (and to some, amus- ing or cutting), is that it reflects both the ill-considered nature of Gingrich's proposal and cer- tain very real and very unpleas- ant realities about the Catholic church - the increasingly fre- quent allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests. As the head of a "civil rights" organization, surely Mr. Donohue will concede that the cartoonist who so offended him was, in fact, exercising his First Amendment right to free speech? And perhaps even that* bad taste does not amount to bigotry? Or if it does, by Mr. Donohue's reasoning, we must conclude that the head of his very own church, the Pope, is also a bigot. After all, it was just last week that the Pope's rather insensitive comments about Buddhism threatened to lead to mass unrest during His Holi- ness' visit to Sri Lanka. Let the one who is without sin among you cast the first stone, indeed. How TO CONTACT THEM University President James J. Duderstadt Office of the President 2074 Fleming Administration Building 764-6270 I