Indiana Daily Student
6
OPINION
Thursday, May 25, 2017 idsnews.com
Editor Therin Showalter opinion@idsnews.com
NOT HOT TAKES EDITORIAL BOARD
Texas Passes Restrictive Abortion Legislation Julia Bourkland is a junior in political science.
investigators and safety officials will waste time sorting the real from the fake. And the understanding of the event on an international level can be muddied by viral instances of false information. Users should be diligent about retweeting or sharing information related to terrorist attacks or similar tragedies by confirming the information from anonymous sources with credible news or government agencies. In order to be most helpful in these situations, we must not let our emotions cloud our judgment.
Last Friday, the Republican-dominated Texas State Legislature voted 96 to 47 to require fetal remains from abortions be buried or cremated despite the United States Supreme Court ruling such restrictions unconstitutional in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt last year, according to the New York Times. The bill is almost identical to Indiana’s HEA 1337, signed into law last year by then-Governor Mike Pence, demanding similar measures. Commemorating a lost pregnancy with a memorial is a deeply heart-wrenching and personal experience that some women choose to have. Texas, however, is morphing this choice into a grotesque mandate with a newly approved House bill that would force every terminated pregnancy to end in a “fetal funeral,” miscarried or aborted. Senate Bill 8 would require all health facilities in which women either abort or miscarry a fetus to perform fetal funerals via burial or cremation. Patients would not be able to waive this practice. The bill states that health providers would lose their medical license and that women who fail to comply could face a $1,000 civil penalty, according to the Huffington Post. Additionally, the law would effectively preclude all abortions after 13 weeks of pregnancy by prohibiting dilation and evacuation procedures, a common practice that removes fetal remains from a woman’s uterus to avoid infection and disease. The bill would also ban donating fetal tissue for medical research. Moving forward, the bill will likely be blocked by a federal judge. In December, U.S. Federal District Judge Sam Sparks blocked a similar antichoice bill in Texas after the state was sued by the Center for Reproductive Rights, calling the language of the bill “unconstitutionally vague.” In actionable terms, hours spent drafting the bill and hearing heartfelt testimonies from pro-life legislators on the House floor will mean nothing. But even if the fetal funeral rule never reaches a single health facility in Texas, prolife lawmakers’ persistence to pass this unjustifiable legislation is enough of an offense. Republican-controlled state governments, like those of Texas, Indiana and Louisiana, avoid efforts to perfect public health legislation by trying to make misogynistic decorum the law of the state. These bills befuddle obstetrics and gynecologists and go against data in peer-reviewed medical journals. Nevertheless, they persist. In spite of medical evidence and human decency, pro-life politicians will stop at nothing to make nonsense the law of the land. An extraordinary amount of time is wasted in statehouses across the country as prolife lawmakers try to build a false ethos around miscarried and aborted fetuses. It’s not so much that the bills themselves are offensive to women and mothers—they obviously are. Instead, it’s more about the gradual recession of women’s dignity by legislating these offensive and shameful procedures. The constant politicization of female reproduction reinforces the notion that women are vessels for the potential of life and are incapable of creating their own futures. Plainly, Texas’ fetal funeral bill is disrespectful. Sadly, it’s not surprising and surely not the worst thing we’ll see on reproductive legislation this year.
emmagetz@indiana.edu @emmaagetz
jsbourkl@indiana.edu @js_bourkland
TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE
U.S. President Donald Trump visits the Western Wall on May 22, 2017 in Jerusalem. President Trump arrived in Israel for a two day visit, as part of his first trip abroad since being elected.
Trump faces investigation, but don’t expect impeachment Revelations from intelligence officials put Trump’s administration at risk In the last several weeks, there have been numerous revelations surrounding the Trump Administration, its possible collusion with Russian officials and its relationship to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Various news sources have confirmed the bizarre series of events unfolding inside the White House. According to the Washington Post, President Trump told Russian officials that firing former FBI Director James Comey relieved “great pressure” on him, calling Comey “a nut job.” Comey, conversely, disclosed that Trump had asked him to “lay off ” the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who has since invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid giving Congress a record of his communication with Russian officials over the last year, according to CNN. Trump also asked the Director of National Intelligence and the head of the National Security Agency to tell the public there was “no evidence of collusion” between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. A senior intelligence official told reporters Trump’s goal was to “muddy the waters” regarding the FBI investigation and other officials have confirmed that Trump “does not care about maintaining such boundaries” between himself and the FBI. Special counsel has been appointed by the Justice Department to investigate the situation, which has laid eyes on a
senior White House official close to the president. According to USA Today, the president has since hired private attorney Marc Kasowitz to represent him concerning matters related to the investigation. If, from all of this, you’re expecting impeachment and removal, be patient. While there’s been a lot of fuss recently from House Democrats finally speaking about impeaching President Trump, it will likely be much longer before there’s a full, fair public accounting. Trump and his administration have clearly obstructed justice and misled the public. The events outlined above are ample evidence of wrongdoing. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, acting as special counsel, should show no mercy toward Trump and others in his administration. But the bureaucracy is thick and the days are long. Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution, which allows for impeachment, has only been invoked three times in our nation’s history. Presidents have been charged with various crimes, ranging from illegally removing a public official from office, to obstruction of justice, to perjury. While it sounds like Trump may have committed several of those crimes, impeachment requires a majority in the House of Representatives and removal from office requires two-thirds of the Senate, both of which are Republican-
controlled bodies that won’t act against Trump unless absolutely necessary. As Trump himself once said at a campaign rally in Iowa last year, “I could shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” In all likelihood, Trump will serve a full, four-year term. Like former President Richard Nixon, we would need taped recordings of his intention to explicitly obstruct justice. And, according to an analysis from the Washington Post, we’ll probably never see them. Like Nixon, though, Donald Trump might resign. However, it’s worth noting that after Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward published information tying one of the Watergate thieves to White House special counsel Charles Colson, Nixon was still able to win re-election by one of the largest margins in history. In fact, it took another 11 months after Woodward’s publication until a special prosecutor was appointed and another 15 months after that until Nixon resigned. While a Nixon and Trump comparison isn’t entirely congruent, the Editorial Board cautions against getting too excited about the prospect of uttering the words “former President Donald Trump.” You probably won’t get to say them until 2021. And even if the sun does set early on the Trump Administration, you might find that the words “President Mike Pence” taste fouler.
SELON MOI
Twitter, Manchester, and the Spread of Fake News On Monday night in Manchester, England, at least 22 people were confirmed dead and many more were injured due to explosions in the crowd of an Ariana Grande concert. The event is causing widespread panic – not just in Manchester, but all over the world – as people fear their loved ones might be injured or missing. Because of the quick responses from Twitter users, many people were able to find safe places to stay and receive the help they needed, in addition to being provided with constant updates on the situation. The problem is that with the speed at which information spreads, many false stories begin to circulate, which can be harmful to the situation and those
involved. Many tweets about missing people, primarily children, went viral quickly. Most of the tweets appeared to be from concerned friends and family members posting pictures and descriptions of their missing loved ones. After many of these tweets gained popularity, some users started to notice that a lot of them were fabricated, using photos of people who were not actually missing. Even though these tweets were confirmed as fake, their popularity continued to grow with tens of thousands of retweets. Rachel Devine, a photographer in Melbourne, Australia, discovered photos of her daughter in tweets claiming she was a missing victim of the explosions,
even though her daughter was with her in Melbourne. Photos of Ariana Grande with blood on her face also surfaced and became viral on Twitter. Posing as aftermath photos of the explosions, they were actually pictures from the set of her television show Scream Queens, taken in 2015. Twitter creates a platform for anonymous users to receive attention and get noticed very quickly. Because of this, fake news and falsified stories often circulate the social network without being fact checked, leading to widespread distribution of false information. In situations of danger and tragedy, such as the explosions in Manchester, this can be extremely harmful. Not only are personal
images shared labeling the wrong people as victims, but false updates about the event itself are spread to the point where it is difficult to tell what actually happened, since tweets from anonymous users are not confirmed. In a panic, people will share and retweet anything that has to do with the situation. The accessibility of instant information has many benefits for connecting the world, but it can be extremely harmful in situations of danger and tragedy if its users aren’t careful. Parents and family members can experience cruel and unnecessary grief seeing images of their children labeled dead or missing, when they’re actually safe. Law enforcement,
Emma Getz is a sophomore in history and creative writing.