© their: “eliminated” while waiting to be born, Pro-abortion point of view won't work Dear Sir: Every column that Sarah de Leeuw writes has a goal: to persuade readers to her point of view. Whether it be her views on the church, the pro- motion of homosexualily or, most recently, abor- tion (The Terrace Standard, March 15,2000, Sarah de Leeuw always employs the same forms af argument in her attempts to manipulate public opinion. As readers, we don't really have very much work to do when we set out to judge the quality “of her. rhetoric. Aristotle, long ago, did all our work for us. Aristotle distinguished between three main forms of persuasion: ‘1) argument (No references for facts nor any eke logic here, we can safely rule this one Out, - 2) the character of the speaker (we may have something here). h % the disposition created in the hearer (direct it). ~ The latter two types of persuasion are achieved by the follawing means: 1. Pathos {emotion). Definition: “Creating a certain disposition in the audience” An emotion- — al appeal that secures the goodwill of the hearer types: A. lay claim to qualities that the audience will respect (Sarah the nature lover, signs of spring and -- ironically — young children playing.) B.-stress disadvantages of speaker's situation as a claim to pity (‘climate of fear”) C. arouse hostility against opponent. Here she . Uses: descriptions of criminal acts performed by fanatics whom she wants the reader to believe are representative of all those who promote life ‘and are against abortion. 'D. generate prejudice against the opponent through tangential or irrelevant information. (‘letters to editors where they are insulted and >. threatened”) . E. incite fear (bombings etc. again) F. plea for pity (an unsupported projection of - suffering women and a couple of pity inspiring -. anecdotes, also “we need to be reminded we are valued and needed”) 2, Ethos (Moral Character) Definition: Use of claims about speaker's moral character to gain trust of audience -Types: A. appeal to age and experience (“For each woman facing perhaps the most” etc.) B. reverence for civic virtue (“a service to many”) .C. patriotism and public-spiritedness (“heroes who previde woman with a service”) D. displays of piety (Not in Sarah's column.) E. follow rules ‘of decorum (e.g. avoid delicate subjects and the use of euphemisms like ‘termination services’ to avoid saying whal really happens to the unborn me F. model restraint (“Until the day etc.”) | "The above was taken from a basic course out- line description at Reed College's web-site and " feft inits original order. Sarah de Leeuw also likes to employ situa- tional ethics. These sorts of arguments run thus: “OK, you think it's wrong but, how about if...” ‘and here inserts some unlikely or extreme situa- tion in an attempt to get you, the reader, to agree | that in that circumstance it would be acceptable, Once the unwilling victim is persuaded to accept this one circumstance the matter is then gener- -. alized to include all circumstances. It's really very simple: Killing innocents is ' “wrong, It always has been wrong. It always will be wrong. Sarah can call it ‘termination services’ if she tikes but, after her hero's work is done, the --paby is still dead and dismembered. This is a fact. ; a Another fact is that more than 38 million ba- bies have been killed by abortion in the U.S.A. alone in the years since Rae Vs. Wade. :[f we have anything to appreciate, it is Sarah *. de Leeuw's lack of success. Most thinking people aren't persuaded by her attempts at emotional ‘manipulation. If we were persuaded by all her ar- -. guments in the Community section of our local --paper, and took them to heart, we'd be an entire community of godless, homosexual pro-aborltion- ists. “We wouldn't reproduce, by definition. How then would our ‘community’ grow? We'd need _ converts. We'd need to persuade and manipulate ‘in order to get others to join us. | wonder how “we'd go about doing that? Paul Evans, Terrace, B.C. Heroes? Not likely” o - Dear Sir: ‘We were compelled to read Ms. De Lecuw's “column because she started writing about gar- ‘dening and we are serious gardeners. Ms. De “Leeuw wrote about living things like crocuses and pussy willows that have tiny but loud voices crying out that spring is on the way. What a beautiful picture Ms De Leeuw paints, but then that picture changes: she raises up men ~and women who work in hospitals and many, many abortion clinics (paid for by the taxpayer), men and women, who, according to Ms. De ‘Leeuw are doing the world a “service” by termi- : nating children while they are still in the womb, “children who will never have a chance to see that little garden or to hold a pussy willow in hands because these children were An abortion may be legal, but it is still an ia- vasive medical procedure which is never 100 per. _ cent safe. Women have died as a result of a so ‘galled legal, safe abortion and many women have mental and physical damage. - Ms. De Leeuw wrote about unwanted children, but. we truly believe that no child is unwanted. The list of parents waiting to adopt is very long. - What we really need is to change the adoption _.Jaws, making it easier for couples to adopt child- oem oa Se ; no, And those ‘abortion providers, are they really herdes, when they get paid for an act that makes The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, April 5, 2000 - A5 CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE TERRACE STANDARD The Mail Bag | ON STRIKE: Goast Mountain school district support workers walk the picket line outside Skeena Junior Secondary School March 21. The district's 394 support staff Include janitors, secretaries and special services assistants. school is about learning and not union contracts Dear Sir: Teachers and support workers within the pub- lic school system are unionized. These people are valued as they are extremely important to in- dividual child development and contribute to the future needs of our society. Parents, however, are non-union, but are also valued for the same reasons. One group has the power to defend their rights and the other group does not. As a parent, a member of the private working sector, and a taxpayer, I feel unions are too powerful, have too many rights, while parents and their children do not receive the services they are entitled to. Unionized groups have the right to withdraw their services if they feel they are not receiving fair treatment. Parents have no course of action to defend their rights or their children's rights to an education, Parents should be able to work everyday, and not have to arrange and pay for daycare for school age children. I was instructed to prepare for a strike by ar- ranging for day care last week while union mem- bers bargained for an increase in wages, in- creased job securily, pension, etc. Children should not experience interruptions in their edu- cation due to strike action. Educating our child- ren should be deemed an essential service. Another example of unfair treaiment is the BC Teachers’ Federation ability to refuse admittance of a child into a school close to the child's resi- dence if there is no space, Parents have no choice, and must enrol their child in whatever school has space. The distance to be travelled to and from school is irrelevant. I believe f should have the right to place my child in the school closest to our residence and my child should have the right to attend the same school as his/her neighbours. The reason for this outrageous inflexibility of no space is a result of the collective agreement negoliated by the BCTF and the B.C. govern- ment in 1998. A part of that was to reduce pri- mary grades class size from 25 in 1998 to 22 in 2000. The B.C. government agreed to provide more money to accommodate for these changes in class size, but presently this extra money doesn't seem to make a difference. All but one school in Terrace at the grade 2 level are full, some with a waiting list of three children. And | am told my child may not get into her local school in September even though the school board has been notified in February. When [ was a child, class sizes were 30 or more, even for primary grades, and we learned our three Rs. We didn't have special needs child- ren, but we didn't have special needs teachers either. Non Instructional Days (NID) were un- heard of. Teachers had time before and after class for marking and course development. What I understand from these collective agreements is that teachers and support staff within the public education school system are te- ceiving more money per year, more benefits, better pensions, but are ultimately responsible for fewer students and put less time into providing an education. This situation is opposite of what people are experiencing in the private job sector; less pay per year, longer hours, more responsibil- ity, and in most cases, no job security. ] am interested in hearing from those of you in agreement and welcome suggestions as to what we can do collectively. Maybe parents should lobby for legislation to withhold a portion of their taxes which currently support public education, and use this money to pay for a private school education for our children. Whatever the solu- tion, we must reverse the current trend before educating our children becomes secondary to achieving collective agreements with CUPE and BCTF. Debra Stokes, Terrace, B.C. most doctars shudder as they made a Hippocratic Oath to protect and care for all human life, from the very young to the very old. Bert and Tina yan Kenlen, Terrace, B.C. Old time logging a thing of the past Dear Sir: Justin Rigsby (“Logging ban pact a sellout”; March 29 and “LRMP in jeopardy”; March 21) is exhibiting the symptoms of a man betrayed by Big Timber, whose interests he apparently repre- sents in the LRMP process. Poor Justin! Did you honestly believe that the boardroom boys at West Fraser et al had your in- terests or those of coastal communities at heart? “Nothing personal, it's just business. Our custo- mers don't want rain forest wood products. [f we don't comply, our investors will loose confidence -and share prices will drop.” Yup, the marketplace. rules, Clearcut old growth 2 2x6's are becoming the Edsel of the forest industry. Perhaps the environmental movement does have better spin doctors than Big Timber, but isn't effective advertising what it’s all about? The free enterprise system is built on market de- mand, and that demand can be created or de- stroyed. As the in-coming president of the cham- ber of commerce, Mr. Rigsby should know better than most that you give the market what it wants. The siege mentality and fear mongering in- dulged in by Mr. Rigsby and Val George will do nothing but create fear. According to an article in the Vancouver Sun, March 17, nothing is certain yet, and both sides will address economic and social issues before reaching any agreement on the ecological issues. No point fighting on the beaches in this case; there will be no blockades to throw stones at. It is the licensees who will stop logging the watersheds of concern. What can we do? March en masse down lo West Fraser and demand they break the agrec- ment and resume clearcutting? Or should we de- tand the government enforce the Forest Act and penalize them for not meeting cut’ controls? Yeah right. Would West Fraser even care? What we need is a concerted effort by com- munities, industry, First Nations and government to address the issues and develop comprehensive plans to make the changes the market is de- manding. Kind of a green version of the Forest Policy Review workshop | we had here last ‘Octo- ber. Team. astounded that someone in. Mr. Rigsby's position would publicly state thal “the spirit bear did just fine, thanks, until Terrace fenced its garbage dump”. Small wonder coastal logging has such a bad image. If his is the attitude of the majority of the LRMP table, land use planning is in big trouble and i'm ail for the Green Guys. Shall we expand the Terrace dump to include all of the Kermode bear's range, thus ensuring them « varied diet? Perhaps we could scatter old car bodies over their clear cut habitat to provide denning sites when the old growth stumps have rotted away and been replaced by short rotation fibre farms. There is a lot at stake: the enviranment, jobs, markets, our children's future, etc. Like many other people, 1 sincerely believe we are seriously over harvesting all our forests, and that govern- ment and industry have not been good land ste- wards. If our watersheds were being managed to protect their integrity, we wouldn't have the en- vironmental movement breathing down our necks. It now appears that the markel place is forcing the changes that successive governments have lacked the political will to make. We can harv- est trees and protect the environment; it is bi: done in B.C. on a small scale and in Scandin. vian countries on a large scale. Eco-sensitive for- estry emphasizing value added products can re- place many lost jobs. Attracting alternative indu- stries such as high tech {if Gibsons can do it, so can we), or light manufacturing will ensure eco- nomic diversity and minimize the effects of re- source downturns. Many B.C, communities have had the econo- mic rug pulled from under their feet. Some have adapted better than others, and always at great pain to the poor working stiff. Time spent whin- ing and scapegoating is time wasted. My son is just starting a carcer in the forest industry. Let's make some meaningful change in the way we do business so he and all the other young people who want to work in the woods will have some- thing to look forward to. Anneke van Keulen, Terrace, B.C. Administrator heavy and hospital bed poor Dear Sir: ] read that the new chief administrator at Mills Memorial is being coached be Mr. Novak on how to follow the present lines of supervising. If the new administrator uses the sume recipe as the current Terrace Health Council head, we don’t need that in this communily of health pro- blems. Then we see the framed invitation to the pub- lic to celebrate the opening of the front hospital lobby cafe and coffee shop sponsored by the health council and the, hospital, auxiliary, , 5 As concerned citizens, we see little, evidence of prime attention and fuhiding. for'health care de- partments at the hospital. We wonder how much Money was spent and from where to present this coffee shop. We may never see any advertisements for more nurses again. In 1978 Mills Memorial Hospital had a 102- bed capacity, and there were five people in ad- ministration - not government appointed bodies (CHCs) in regions who show little respect, ac- tion or care for the health needs in most areas. The main concern of CHCs seem to centre on government budget cuts to health institutions, without any logic. Since federal and provincial governments are between 15 and 20 years behind in anticipating and solving health care problems much more funding is needed for an interim period. B.C, has taken the same path wilh CHCs in charge of our health as happened in Ontario and Quebec, which has resulted in an abortion of health care issues there. We used to have elected local hospital boards, who covered the operation and cost of our hospitals and administrators and these insti- tutions (e.g. Mills Memorial) were not in the red as in the present times. What is the present rationale when Mills Memorial Hospital has 20-25 beds allowed, and 10-12 people working in administration? Edna Jensen, Terrace, B.C. Healthy warning Dear Sir: The recent “new” money for health care (Paul Martin’s payback) barely brings the health bud- get to its 1991 level, and with inflation and po- pulation growth factored in, the system is light years behind, in service and capital projects. Ralph Klein, in his first term in office, deci- mated the health system in Alberta, closing 40 per cent of health care facilities. In his first term there was an attempt fo start a private surgical hospital in Calgary. Klein is now pushing through Bill 11. It has caused some strong reaction, even in Alberta, but the position of Allan Rock, our federal health minister, is as solid, and as clear, as liquid blue clay. As is the position of our MP for Skecna, Mike Scott. Allan Rock has been quoted as say- ing, “The system is in need of repair, and Ralph (Klein) and I will have to get together and fix it.” Here we have two governors who really and truly destroyed the system now saying they will fix it. T suggest to you that these two govern- ments have long had a private agenda to system- atically underfund and destroy our healt}gmaas and replace it with a “new” one, Thiglra pe modelled and designed by the poweérfil health insurance/hospital systems with roots south of the border. The “new” design will be on two levels — one for the top 20 per cent of the population, com- plete with hospitals. The rest of us will have cli- nics.in some alley. . Don’ t believe me? Visit New York sometime. ‘Les Watimough, Terrace, B.C.