Abortion

People who are for abortion call people who aren't for abortion anit-choice. They make a good point that people who are against abortion will do anything to make abortions harder for the women to acess no matter the circumstances. They don't take into account if the woman was raped, has AIDS that could transfer to the baby, has a drug addiction that could transfer to the baby, if she's homeless, and countless other circumstances that would only get worse with a baby involved. The other side who call themselves pro-life or right to life also have a good point. It is somewhat like killing the person, you are taking away all of the chances of the child. They can argue that in some cases the person who aborts on the baby will regret that choice but in well over half the women is happy that she had an abortions. I think that the pro-choice side is winning becuase it has been ever since Roe V. Wade. Until that gets overturned or changed I think that they will still be winning the debate. I think that as a 17 or 18 year old girl who wants an abortion their parents should be informed of the abortion. That is for the reason that the parents should know what is going with their kids lives and if they are having a baby. I don't think that they should have consent. That is becuase the woman who is having the baby is the one who knows best what is the best option for her. If she thinks that she needs an abortion and her parents don't in the end it is her body, the kid would be her responsibility, and therefore doesn't need the consent of her parents. With the issue of the father knowing and consenting it i feel the same way about the consent that it should be the womans ultimate decision. But for the father being notified I don't think that should be necesary. If she hasn't told him then they aren't on good terms or she doesn't want him to know for some reason which I think is o.k. The Illinois laws are about as good as I think the abortion laws are going to be. There will never be a law that everyone agrees with, or works for everyone, I don't think. If there was a simple solution we would've already found it.

Death Penalty part 3

After reading the whole process behind a criminal getting the death penalty I see that there are more steps than I thought. This makes the chance of prosecuting an innocent man less likely. This doesn’t guarantee that all criminals are guilty, but it is the best I think that we can do without saying that half of the people convicted are innocent. One step that is designed to help less innocent people have to go to trial is the preliminary hearing where the prosecutor shows evidence to the court that must prove to be sufficient. Another step is the defendant’s case where the defendant has a chance to respond to the evidence against him that the prosecutors provided. This helps get the convicts half of the story.

After learning about the different types of execution that could be used, the most humane seems to be the lethal injection that all but one of the states that have the death penalty use. Out of all of the ways to be executed the least-humane seems to be hanging. This often times breaks the victims neck before strangling them of all of their oxygen. That being said I think that we should use the cheapest way of executing people which I doubt is the lethal injection. None of the other remaining ways are much more inhumane than the others and who says that they deserve to die in a humane way. Sure it is in the Constitution but there are other rights that are taken away when people are convicted of a crime like when they go to jail. Unless a murderer goes out of their way to make the death of their victim more pleasant, I don’t think that we should makes there’s more pleasant. Having in-humane death penalties could prevent even more crime than the humane one because it is not a good way to die. With the lethal injection they have nothing to fear because they won’t feel any pain so they are less afraid of the punishment making them more likely to commit the crime.

There is a lot of data about what types of people were on death row and it is hard to draw conclusions from these numbers. For example there are about the same blacks on death row and white people. This may seem like obvious discrimination towards blacks since there are so many less of them and yet there are the same amount of death row, but there are other factors that come to mind like what percentage of murderers are blacks which I’m sure is higher than the percentage of whites just because there are so many more white people in America and the same amount on death row. One thing that I can conclude is that the numbers of women are not even a percentage of the amount of men and yes fewer women commit murders than men but I think there is more to it. I think people would feel worse about putting a woman to death as opposed to a man which is unjust. One other conclusion that I came to is that there are a lot more people on death row than I thought. This forces me to believe that out of the thousands of people there have to be at least a couple who don’t deserve it. This goes back to a quote I remember that said I would rather set 100 criminals free than have 1 wrongly accused. After looking at all of the charts, despite the raw data there is more to it than those pie charts. I don’t think that race is involved in the decision of whether or not to give the death penalty, I could see this happening in the past when there was more racism in America, but now decisions need good reasoning. That makes the execution of one race or mostly just executing one race impossible.

Clifford Boggess execution

There are a lot of people who say that the death penatly is a good solution to extreme crimes that jail doesn't justify. They say this without looking at the criminal as a person but as the crimes that they commited. The reason I think we watched this film was to get to know Clifford as a person before we see him get killed so we can realize everyone who is killed by the death penalty are people too who made a mistake. I still think that he deserved the death penatly even though there were a lot of signs that showed that he was a good person. He strudied the bible, was a devoted christian, admitted that he had done the crimes, and he doesn't seem like a danger to society. However none of these things matter. He killed the two victimes simply for money and he didn't seem like a threat to society when he commited the crimes. No matter how much anyone changes in prison or the size of a relization they have, they are still a danger to society if they could've received the death penalty. There were a lot of signs that showed that he was a danger to society. he didn't feel anything for the victims, he even kept a picture of one of their tombstones with him in his cell. He was sober and stomped on one of the mens face and chest. There are other things that show this too. It is cheaper for him to be killed instead of paying for his meals, him taking up a cell, and other costs associated with being a prisoner. Also, the woman who told police that he was the killer was scared for her life even moving every couple of months. Killing him was the only thing that could bring her peace of mind. Also, life in prison which would be the sentence that he would recieve if not on death row proves to be dangerous because the inmates have nothing to lose, he is clearly capeable of killing so why not kill a prison gaurd or another inmate. Also, he could escape, in the video there was a painting that he had and under it was a painting of the prison fence which was thought to be part of an escape plot. Some would argue that he is a value to society as a christian and as an artist. I say that he had his change in society which he messed up, and the ammount of good he can provide isn't even close to the amount of bad he has done, and can still do.

School Drug Testing

In the Supreme Court case N.J. v T.L.O. it was stated that although some fourth ammendment rights are recognized, some parts are disolved since you are in school. I think that this is stupid and unfair towards the students. That's becuase I feel that they are shaping the laws that are already made so that they can basically do whatever they want legally. I think that it invades privacy and if someone had a drug problem their parents or gaurdians should notice. If they want they can drug test their own kid on their own but they don't need the school to make it a manditory part of extracuricular activities. Unless a kid is coming to practice high and hurting other people then the school shouldn't care if kids are using drugs. If that is the case then the coach or head of the team should notice and if she/he doesn't notice they still wont be the ones getting in trouble it would be the kid.
In a case where a 13 year old girl got stripped search in school becuase another student said that she had ibuprofen. This is so rediculous for a number of reasons. Firstly ibuprofen is a non-harmful pill it isn't like it was some hardcore drug that she could hurt herself using. Also, I don't know what the school was thinking when they thought it was ok to strip search her. I think that it is completely inapropritate and unnecesary especially in this case.

2010 core questions survey reflection

There were a lot of numbers in this poll that really suprised me. One is that in 2010 38% of the people asked said that they strongly agree that the constitution establishes a christian nation. This is suprising because I have never heard of this before and almost half of the people beleive that it is true. I don't know what they think promotes a christian nation more than any other religioun when in the first ammendment it states that you have the freedom of religoun. I find it interesting also that although 43% of the people aksed said that they strongly disagree that Public schools should be allowed to discipline students who use their own personal computers at home to post material that school officials say is offensive, people in our school have still gotten in trouble for pictures that have been posted on their facebook pages. Not only do they get in trouble for their non school related things, but the deans are actually going out of their way to look at peoples pictures and get them in trouble which I think is completely rediculous. One more thing that was shocking to me is that less than half of the people surveyed said that the constitution clearly seperated church and state. I thought that it made a clear seperation.

9/11 film

We watched a film about 9/11, it was all footage from that day and the days after the attack. Some things that I remembered from the film was the huge smoke and debris cloud that was tumbling through the streets of New York City looking like it was eating up everything in its path. If the cloud engulfed you, you wouldn’t be able to see anything at all just smoke. Another thing that I remember is the sound of each of the buildings collapsing. It is the sound of thousands of innocent people dying. I remember seeing the streets around the building covered with people trying to get away from the heat. All of those people probably died from the building collapsing or an explosion. The last thing that stuck with me from this film is after the attack people were arguing about how this affects America and what we should do about it and things like that. They realized when they were arguing that they were on the same side and they shouldn’t be arguing so they hugged and made up. This type of behavior I imagine doesn’t happen much in New York City or anywhere.

Speech Codes

I think that the college students had it in their constitutional rights to dress up in this racist way. But I think that it should be against the schools rules to make racist remarks or act in a racist way. School is no place to display racism so if they want to be racist they can take thier party off campus. I agree with speech codes in schools. They restrict peoples rights, but I think they should be restricted in certain places and school is one of those places. Just like I think it would be inapropriate to walk into a church and start talking badly about christians I think no one at a school should have to worry about racism, it's about learning and becoming a part of the community.