Arkansas State Senate Approves Late-Term Abortion Ban

http://feminist.org/news/newsbyte/printnews.asp?id=11538, From what I can see they are really starting to crack down on the practice of abortion. Arkansas state Senate passed a bill to ban partial abortion birth abortions by a 30 to 3 vote. The same bill was also passed in Arkansas state House of Representatives. A partial birth abortion is a medical procedure that is not restricted to a particular stage of pregnancy. The only exception in the bill made by the legislation is to save the life of the mother. Since passing the bill, doctors who perform the procedure under the proposed law can face felony charges. Democratic state Representative, Dawn Creekmore, who is the bill's sponsor, says that the law would only affect abortions after the first trimester. Dr. William Harrison critisized the bill saying that it is to vague, because after eight or nine weeks any abortion, potentially could be defined by the bill. The legislation is parallel to federal law that bans so-called partial birth abortions. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold the federal Partial Abortion Act, which was passed by the Republican controlled Congress in 2003 and bans the same abortion procedure.
I am glad that Arkansas has passed a bill to ban this procedure because I feel that it is a gruesome act and flat out inhumane. I only hope that other states will follow Arkansas in the decision to ban partial birth abortions. I can agree with the procedure in order to save the mother's life, but is the only case that I see it being exceptable.

What Obama Means to the World

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090202/younge, Gary Younge looks back at the race struggles that have taken place throughout history. He begins by looking back at the wrongfull imprisonment of author and screenwriter Ronan Bennett, who was imprisoned by the British in the 70's, though Bennett had never met a black person the one book that was most influential to him during his prison stay was Soledad Brother, which was the prison letters of a black American militant George Jackson. Even though Bennett had never met a black person, black America loomed large in his life, because of the the struggles he had watched and viewed through the media and on television, he and his family had great sympothy for black Americans. Through the last centruy Younger discusses, the redemptive force and permanent dissidence against racism at home and abroad, and the reminder that no African has came to freedom at the shores of the New World. Younge article looks back at the struggle after struggle that black Americans have seemed to overcome and the influence they have had on other countries. He brings up Kwame Nkrumah who once in power in a newly independent Ghana, sent for black American intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois to edit the Encyclopedia Africana and Paul Robeson to take up the chair of music and drama at Accra University. Younge goes on to point out other greats such as Muhammad Ali, Malik Bowens, but the big event for truimph was the even that occurred on November 4, 2008, after years of struggle for blacks, there is a new black president and it showed to the world the greatness of the dream that finally came true. With America's new black president it has shown the rest of the world that it is time to move on, and the struggle that black Americans were able to overcome.
I truly agree that having a black president is truly a monumental thing and I am so glad that black Americans have been able to overcome their struggles from the past and I truly see this as a wonderful thing.