OPINION Adak Pa t . The Michigan Daily y r ayts cr n I c - n A fate worse than debt; AMIDST ALL the hooplah accom- debt payments "kill more people panying the recent debt reduction ac- than wars." cord between the United States and Nor is this idle rhetoric. Brazil has Mexico, it is more necessary than been forced to severely cut back on, ever to question both the parameters its provision of social services, lead- of the Brady Plan within which the ing to a situation in which two- accord was constructed and, more thirds of the country's families live significantly, the very logic demand- below the poverty line [set at $75 ing that the debt be repaid at all. For dollars a month] and an astounding that logic forgets that the Third 300,000 children die each year before World has already paid its debt-cur- reaching their first birthday. rently estimated at close to $400 bil- rahn lion-and then some through oner- Things aren't much better in ous interest payments. Mexico. A recent United Nations Take Brazil, for example. study concluded that more than half According to Brazil's National of all Mexicans, or some 42.5 mil- Council of Christian Churches, lion people, now live below interna- Brazil paid $176 billion in debt ser- tional nutrition standards. Only one vice from 1972 to 1988, more than in five rral children less than four the $124 billion it currently owes. years old is of normal weight and And between 1980 and 1987, Brazil stature. Mexico's heralded accord- paid out $50.7 billion more in debt actually offering only 13% reduction payments than it received in new on the country's debt mountain-- loans, cannot begin to address these prob- Such figures quickly cut away the lems. Bush Administration's rhetoric about Latin America cannot move this how countries such as Brazil cannot mountain through faith in be considered eligible for new loans Washington, but must, rather, do so because they have not developed through a combined and unilateral "serious economic policies." Serious debt moratorium. Only leftist parties according to who? The sobering con- such as the Workers Party (PT) in sequences of Brazil's attempt to meet Brazil or the Cardenista movement its supposed obligations include al- and the Socialist Workers Party most a decade of only 1% growth, (PRT) in Mexico are committed to the use of as much as 97% of its such a suspension. Those committed trade surplus to feed the debt ma- to Latin America's emancipation chine, and, in the words of Workers should extend solidarity to them as Party Presidential Candidate Luis the only forces capable of giving Inacio da Silva, a situation where Latin American peoples a future. Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan Vol. XCIX, NO.t10-S 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 "'signed editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other toons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. Poor choice: Anti-choice and class warfare ONE WEEK after the Webster deci- hospitals or by public-employed sion a package of legislation further medical personnel. restricting abortion rights was pro- 'Prohibit state employees from posed by Michigan state senators counseling welfare recipients on Jack Welborn R-Kalamazoo and Fred abortion. Dillingham R-Fowlerville. -End medical insurance coverage The bills follow in the tradition of for abortions for the state's 65,000 seventeen previously vetoed mea- employees and their dependents. sures to restrict abortion rights pro- -Parental consent law for women posed between 1978 and 1986. If under 18 years of age. If parents passed, the four bills would further refuse to give consent, the woman remove access to abortion services would have to seek a waiver from for poor and working class women. juvenile court. Currently the right to abortion is The "rationale" that these mea- tenuously held in the hands of the sures would deter women from hav- middle and upper classes. Proposal ing abortions is ridiculous. One in A, passed last November, denies every four pregnancies ends in abor- poor women the option of safe tion; this percentage has remained healthcare, making abortions cost- consistent even when abortion was prohibitive by removing Medicaid illegal in the United States. In coun- funding for abortions. Consequently, tries where abortion is illegal, one in poor women are either forced to risk every three pregnancies ends in abor- their lives with back-alley abortions, tion, thus proving the point that le- or to delay the abortion until they galized abortion is generally accom- are able to raise needed funds. panied by an increase in women's The four proposals before the state awareness of their sexuality and an hegslaur roos: beeths increase in knowledge and methods legislature are as follows: of birth control vs. an increase in -Bar abortion services in public abortions. Dillingham would like to see the proposed anti-choice package to be placed on the 1990 ballot in order to avoid Blanchard's veto. Such a move appears to be "democratic" in that it supposedly puts the issue into the hands of the people. However, the encouragement of this by the legisla- tion is just further proof that the Michigan state lawmakers are class biased. For voting, in a country where elections are controlled by money more than principles, hardly constitute the representative democ- racy which, in the United States, ex- ists more in rhetoric than in reality. Those who go to the polls are pre- dominantly white middle class vot- ers. The women who would be most directly effected by the legislation are not those who vote, poor women and women of color. If those in the state government are truly concerned about abortion and women's healthcare issues then they should legislate to make birth control, and information on women's healthcare accessible to all rather than creating obstacles that further jeopardize women's lives. e0 0 Supreme Court apartheid by Rollie Hudson and Victoria Baecher 1964-1989, R.I.P the Civil Rights Movement, then, forced the mative action settlements for white Rights movement? The United hand of the white policy makers. workers in the city of Birmingham, States of America is a political insti- One approach to help remedy the Alabama. Here, the legal challenge tution made strong from a history of State, albeit cosmetic, was to estab- of a white fire fighter against the af- territorial wars and slavery. Its lish affirmative action laws which firmative action policy of the fire rulers, all of whom were white and attempted to allow not only Blacks, department was upheld. (Martin v. male, once claimed manifest destiny. but other oppressed minority groups Wilks) But who's destiny was manifested, and women in general, the opportu- -On June 12th, the Court decided, and by whom? Whether it be God or nity to undo hundreds of years of 5 to 3, that challenges against se the United States Supreme Court, malicious segregation, enslavement, nority systems allegedly discrimina- minorities and women in general and in the case of Native Americans, tory against Blacks or women must have come up on the short end of the genocide. be brought within 300 days of their stick. But the newly stacked Reagan inception. This case involved three To be enslaved generation after Supreme Court has apparently given women inIllinois who maintain that generation was to be deprived of cul- up any semblance of a vision of a within the context of working for an ture and formal education. Following society "by the people, for the peo- employer - usually years - long the civil war came Jim Crow segre- ple." Within the last six months it enough to gain seniority, to only gation (after a brief attempt at recon- has rolled back or severely limited an have 300 days to contest is unrea- struction). Jim Crow segregation unprecedented number of civil rights sonable. (Lorance v. A. T. & .) legislated "petty" apartheid which, in laws. Of the more significant and 'On June 15ththe Cou severely turn, perpetuated "deep structure" damaging cases: limited, 51 t, the interpretation of apartheid.tsOn January 23rd, in a 6 to 3 deci- an 1866 reconstruction law allowing Petty apartheid kept people apart sion, a Richmond Virginia ordinance only reparations but damages for on the bus, deep structure apartheid, which set aside 30% of public works employees discriminated against by or tacit apartheid, however, has contract spending for minority con- their employers. (Patterson v. maintained vicious cycles of poverty tractors was overturned. (Richmond Mclean Credit Union) for African-Americans. Black people v. Croson) The recent Supreme Court were, and still are, prevented from -On June 5th a 5 to 4 decision re- decisions, if they have marked the gaining standard of living equity. versed a two decade old precedent demise of the Civil Rights They were prevented from getting concerning burden of proof regarding Movement only in the eyes of the jobs and bank loans for small busi- business practices alleged to be ra- government, will now do nothing nesses. Deep structure apartheid, cially, or gender, discriminatory. The but add to the problem. thus, created the ghettos and from it burden of proof now rests on the came an unexpectedly popular civil employee. (Wards Cove v. Antonio) Rollie Hudson and Victoria rights movement in response. -On June 12th, the Court, in an- Baecher are staff writers for the The African-American Civil other narrow decision, opened affir- Daily.