Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.issues,americast.usa-today.issues From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: issues Tue, Oct 6 1992 Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 05:45:32 EDT Message-ID: 10-06 0000 DECISIONLINE: Issues & Debate USA TODAY Update Oct. 6, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network Here are some of the issues and topics being debated across the nation Tuesday morning in USA TODAY: Abortion; Campaign; Africa. TODAY'S DEBATE - ABORTION ACCESS: USA TODAY'S OPINION: Having a constitutional right doesn't always mean you can exercise it. At health clinics all over the country, women have had to run gantlets in order to secure their constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion. Protesters who believe that abortion is murder have barred their paths, blockaded clinic doors or created disruption that forced clinics to close. Today, the Supreme Court steps into the fray. It will hear Bray vs. Alexandria Health Clinic, a case that challenges the federal government's right to intervene to prevent groups - in this case, Operation Rescue - from barring women's access to abortion. ... What constitutes legitimate protest? When does protest become an infringement upon someone else's rights? Without a definition, chaos reigns: ... At a New York clinic, a demonstrator threatened to run over a pregnant woman helping escort patients inside. ... Until the court eases uncertainty over conflicting rights, women seeking abortions will have to run gantlets. OTHER VIEW: REBECCA REDD HAGELIN, a Vienna, Va., writer: To intellectually and honestly debate abortion protests, we must first think about the act of abortion itself. ... If the fetus is not alive, as some say, then why must action be taken to stop its growth? And if it is not human, then what is it? A cat? A dog? ... 1.6 million innocent babies are brutally and legally slaughtered in their mothers' wombs every year. This is the American holocaust of abortion. ... Some people attempt to save lives and awaken the nation by exercising their constitutional right of peaceful protest. ... How many of us have wished the people of Nazi Germany had had this right, or that a movement would have arisen to block the entrances to the "showers"? If we forget the lessons of history and ban peaceful protests of abortion, the American holocaust may never end. VOICES ACROSS THE NATION ON CAMPAIGN ADS SO FAR: CINCINNATI, Ohio, Vivian Delmonico, 66, housewife: Whenever someone bad-mouths someone else, it really turns me off. Bush runs down Clinton for not serving in Vietnam, and Clinton runs down Bush for the Iran-contra cover-up. I'm sure they are going to pull out all the dirt for the debates. HELENA, Mont., Darryl E. Bruno, 29, manager: Although I have yet to see what the Perot campaign has put together, I believe the Bush campaign advertising better targets the important issues of today, like America's role as a world leader. To a certain degree, though, you have to wade through the fluff. ALFRED, N.Y., Darcy Pulos, 40, kindergarten teacher: They're humorous - a laugh a day. My favorite ones people make up themselves. I saw one in someone's back yard, saying, "I can spell potatoe." I keep a file. I cut out the funny ones and keep them. We've talked about Dan Quayle in class and how people make mistakes. APOPKA, Fla., Tirso Moreno, 39, community organizer: I ignore advertisements. I try to make my own judgment by knowing things more than through ads. People who don't see much of the candidates might be influenced by what is being told to them. It's too bad. It's not the full story. BATON ROUGE, La., Francis Henderson, 52, physician: They are getting a little mean. The public is saturated with advertisements. It's a lot of money that could be used for other things. The money could be used more effectively. TOPIC -FAMINE: NORMAN BORLAUG was interviewed by USA TODAY's Debbie Malo. CAN YOU BRING YOUR CROP YIELD SUCCESS TO AFRICAN COUNTRIES? In India, Bangladesh and China especially, with a dense population, their only opportunity for increasing food production is largely through increasing the yield on the land already under production. In African countries south of the Sahara, there's a lot of additional land that can be opened to farming, but there's no animal power. So everything is done by hoe and machete. That means each family can only handle about two and a half to three acres. What we need to have them do is to handle six or eight or 10 acres. They have no equipment, and the equipment wouldn't be of any use until they have power, animal power especially. Then you have to educate the people to use these animals. HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT WORKING IN SOMALIA? We're more focusing on trying to get started in Ethiopia. We find from past experience that until things quiet down a bit, it's pretty ineffective to start in. It's so difficult to get the governments to talk about moving new technology and production onto farms when the people are already starving. If it quiets down a bit, then that is when we move in. HOW WOULD YOU BRING YOUR "GREEN REVOLUTION" THERE? We always start pretty much the same way in any country. First, we look at the information that's available. Information on an improved variety of seed, on soil infertilities and what has to be done to correct them. Quite a bit of information on diseases and insects and weeds. We have taken that and put the pieces together and have tested them on one-acre plots. We have seen that nearly always you can double, and generally triple, the yield. Even, in many cases, quadruple it. Issues & Debate Editor: Beth Mann. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM