Banner Graphic, Volume 20, Number 33, Greencastle, Putnam County, 12 October 1989 — Page 2
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THE BANNERGRAPHIC October 12,1989
Abortion rights leaders are claiming growing momentum in policy battle
WASHINGTON (AP) Abortion rights leaders claim an “unprecedented turnaround” is putting anti-abortion forces on the political run following defeats in the U.S. House and a special legislative session in Florida. And in Virginia, Democratic candidate for governor Douglas Wilder is challenging political wisdom on abortion by airing prochoice television ads aimed at winning support among conservative voters. ‘THIS IS EVIDENCE that the anti-choice minority no longer inspires fear in elected officials,” said Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League. The House voted 216-206 on Wednesday to allow federal aid for abortions for poor women who are victims of rape or incest, rejecting Medicaid restrictions it has kept in the law since 1981. It instead backed more liberal provisions already passed by the Senate. The vote was a defeat for conservatives and put Congress in opposition to President Bush, who has promised to veto Medicaid abortions. REP. PATRICIA Schroeder, DColo., attributed the vote to an abortion rights movement galvanized by the Supreme Court’s decision in July giving the states more power to restrict abortions. “The Webster decision was a wakeup call,” she said. Rep. Henry Hyde, R-111., for years the leader of anti-abortion
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REP. PATRICIA SCHROEDER Webster woke them up
forces in the House, said House members are increasingly “perceiving their constituencies as prochoice.” Darla St. Martin, leader of the National Right to Life Committee, said the vote “opens the door to the use of tax funds to destroy innocent unborn babies” and vowed that members who switched on the issue “will now hear from constituents.” IN TALLAHASSEE, Fla., a special session of the state legislature called by Gov. Bob Martinez rejected a series of proposed restrictions on abortions that the Republican governor sought “A right, having been es-
East Germans express interest in reforms
BERLIN (AP) The ruling Politburo promised to discuss the prospect of a more open society after meeting amid indications that high-ranking officials are unhappy with Communist leader Erich Honecker’s handling of growing unrest. Some Communist Party leaders warned the 77-year-old Honecker that unless calls for democratic reforms are urgently addressed he could face labor unrest party sources said. THEY REPORTED resistance within the security forces and the state-controlled news media to the government’s harsh weekend crackdown on nationwide prodemocracy protests. The sources said high-ranking Communist officials had demanded Honecker deliver a report on the
tablished, is not easily removed,” said Tom Gustafson, Florida’s speaker of the House. The Florida session was the first in the nation since the July 3 Supreme Court ruling gave the longstanding debate over abortion a fresh and relevant political focus. FLORDIA WAS closely watched as a bellwether for the nation, and more than 10,000 demonstrators had descended upon its capital. In Virginia, idependent polls show Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wilder overtaking his anti-abortion opponent since he began airing a tough ad accusing Republican Marshall Coleman of trying to take away women’s right to a legal abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. Coleman accused Wilder of trying “to spread fear fear from a single, divisive issue.” The election is in four weeks. MICHELMAN, HEAD of the national abortion rights group, said the votes in Florida and in Congress “are overwhelming evidence of the dramatic and unprecedented turnaround among elected officials on this issue.” She credited abortion rights demonstrators and dismissed the anti-abortion forces as “a small minority whose electoral bite does not match their bark.” Supporters of expanded abortion rights argued the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Webster case mobilized their side by making the possibility of new abortion restric-
“critical situation” of the nation by Friday. In the past month, nearly 50,000 people have fled to the West and the country has seen its largest street protests since 1953. The reported warnings came during an unusual two-day Politburo meeting to which the 21member body invited members of the party’s 163-seal Central Committee, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. AFTER THE meeting ended Wednesday, the Politburo said in a statement: “All expressions of opinion and suggestions for attractive socialism in (East Germany) are important. We are open to discussions.” It did not specify whether it meant the country’s leaders were willing to open talks with the opposition groups they have long persecuted, as some local Communist officials have done this week. In the statement, the Politburo rejected “suggestions and demonstrations intended to change the foundations of our state.” It reaffirmed its commitment to socialism, saying the answers to current problems “are not to be found in the capitalist past”
Rev. Abernathy tells of Martin Luther King’s “weakness” for women in autobiography
ATLANTA (AP) The memoirs of the man who marched beside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. depict him as a leader of outstanding moral character but who had a weakness for women, even on the night before his assassinaNUNN BUSH A BIG NAME AT A LITTLE PRICE.
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lions seem more likely and in the process prompted some abortion supporters to become single-is-sue voters, just as some abortion opponents have been. THE PROVISION adopted by the House would allow Medicaid payments for abortions when the mother’s life is in jeopardy or when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest and was “promptly” reported to authorities. Since 1981 the House has voted for language allowing federal aid for abortions only in cases in which the woman’s life was in danger. Medicaid financing for poor women’s abortions has been restricted in one way or another since 1977. The abortion provision is part of a $156.7 billion measure to finance labor, health and education programs for fiscal 1990, which began Oct. 1. The spending bill, which was approved 364-56, now moves to the Senate. BUSH THREATENED in August to veto the bill if it contains the more liberal abortion language, and administration officials reiterated that threat this week. Though the House vote was too narrow to override a veto, supporters of broader abortion rights said changing public views in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling have given their side the momentum. “The political momentum on this issue is so strong now that if President Bush vetoes this, he’d be making a big mistake,” said Rep. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
ERIC HONECKER Under growing criticism
THE STATEMENT, issued by the official ADN news agency, made no direct mention of the growing opposition movement but did call on East Germans to refrain from demonstrations. It said East Germans “must and will” together seek out the reasons for the exodus to the West
lion. “And The Walls Came Tumbling Down,” published this month by Harper & Row, chronicles the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy’s life as a preacher and civil rights activist, including his many years as King’s closest friend and confidant ABERNATHY REVEALS that King had encounters with various women on the night before his April 4, 1968, assassination at a Memphis, Tenn., hotel. The revelation corroborates longstanding reports that King had extramarital affairs. But in an advance copy of the book, Abernathy staunchly defends his friend’s morality, without condoning his activities. He explains that he felt compelled to write of “my friend’s weakness for women,” and devotes part of one chapter in the 610-page book to King’s private affairs. KING “BELIEVED in the biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage. It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation,” Abernathy wrote. “We all fall short of the mark. ... Sexual sins are by no means the worst Hatred and a cold disregard for others are the besetting sins of our time.” Abernathy said he might have avoided the matter had others not dealt with it in detail. He said he wanted “to make some attempt to render justice to the dead without causing too much unnecessary pain to the living.”
world
Americans share Nobel physics prize with German
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) U.S. scientists Norman F. Ramsey and Hans G. Dehmelt and West German Wolfgang Paul shared the Nobel Prize for physics today, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced. Ramsey, of Harvard University, was awarded half the prize for the invention of the separated oscillary fields method and its use in atomic clocks. DEHMELT, WHO was bom in Germany and is associated with the University of Washington in Seattle, and Paul, of the University of Bonn, shared the second half of the $469,000 prize for their work in the development of the ion trap technique, the academy said. “All three of them have developed exact methods of measurement which has made it possible to conduct experiments that might force us to reconsider some basic physical laws, especially regarding time and space,”
The Politburo hinted at possible changes including more free expression in the rigidly controlled news media and greater freedom to travel. Among officials advocating reform Wednesday was the country’s chief ideologue, Kurt Hager. PARTY SOURCES said another Politburo member, Egon Krcnz, was responsible for the decision to order security forces who beat and arrested hundreds of protesters over the weekend to show restraint during demonstrations Monday in Leipzig, East Berlin and Dresden. Krenz is often mentioned as a possible successor to Honecker. Party sources said Honecker’s political future could be uncertain in light of the unusual outspokenness of some officials at the Politburo meeting. Pressure was also, mounting on Honecker elsewhere, they said. THEY SAID ADN journalists were refusing to write or broadcast any more reports that described peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators as “troublemakers.”
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REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING A hero and womanizer
ABERNATHY NAMES none of the women with whom King allegedly was involved. He said extended travels during the civil rights movement were one reason, but not the main one, for King’s extramarital liaisons. “He was ... a man who attracted women, even when he didn’t intend to, and attracted them in droves,” Abernathy said. “He was a hero the greatest hero of his age and women are always attracted to a hero.” Abernathy praised his friend for courage, saying had King “been a coward rather than a truly brave man ... we might still be riding in the back of buses and eating in segregated restaurants.”
said Ingvar Lindgren, chairman of the awarding committee. Ramsey’s invention yielding the cesium atomic clock is the basis for the present standard of time, with an accuracy of about one part in ten thousand billion, or 10 followed by 13 zeros. HE ALSO introduced the hydrogen-maser technique, the most stable source of electromagnetic radiation and a method for studying “the hyperfine structure of hydrogen with extreme precision,” the academy said. It also is used to measure short lengths of time and shifts in frequency. Dehmelt and Paul were cited for developing ways of trapping atoms to study a single electron or ion with extreme precision. “The methods have been used in testing fundamental physical principles such as quantum electrodynamics ... (and in) space communication for measuring continental drift,” the academy said.
And party sources in Karl-Marx-Stadt said members of paramilitary groups attached to local factories were refusing to take part in training exercises. “They said workers arc not going to march against workers,” according to the party sources. The sources quoted the party officials as telling Honecker “there are increasing signs of coming strikes in the factories” and that “there is no time to waste.” PARTY MEMBERS told Honecker that some workers were already refusing to work overtime and called on the government to address the “increasingly pressing questions” of the nation’s citizens. Hager, one of the most influential figures in the party hierarchy, called Wednesday for greater participation of the people in solving the country’s problems, more openness in society and reforms in the news media. Previously, he had been known as a hard-liner opposed to the type of reforms heralded by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and embraced by Hungary and Poland.
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REV. RALPH ABERNATHY Writes of friend’s problem
DETAILING THE night before King’s assassination, Abernathy wrote that after King’s “I have been to the mountaintop” address, King, Abernathy and a colleague went to the home of “a ‘friend’ of Martin’s.” Abernathy saw King and the friend come out of the bedroom after 1 a.m., according to the book’s advance copy. Later that night, back at the Lorraine Motel, King got together with “a black woman ... a member of the Kentucky Legislature” with whom he shared a “close” relationship, Abernathy wrote. He added that King did not return to the room he shared with Abernathy until after 7 a.m.