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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 18077
[Civil]
Date Posted:
6/29/2007
8:47:00 am EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 6,159
RSS: 23,858
Comments: 23
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Rider Banned Over Birth-Control Advice
Author: AP Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Title: RIDER BANNED OVER BIRTH-CONTROL ADVICE
A 76-year-old woman has been barred from the bus station after giving unwanted birth-control advice to mothers with large families. "I think it's wrong. It's a violation of my First Amendment rights," Laura Stevens said.
"She's been making comments to some of the Hispanic passengers that they should be on the pill, that they're taking over our society," said Todd Beutler, general manager of the Cache Valley Transit District.
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Community Thoughts: There are 23 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Unreal | Jun 30th. at 5:22:02 pm EDT
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Shadeaux (Garner, North Carolina) - Email Me
Many of you are spouting off about how awful it is for anyone to have more than the allotted 1.5 children,and Mother forbid that anyone who has children be among the poorer of the nation.
How dare you? How dare you assume that everyone who has a large family is uneducated, on welfare, and sucking the life out of the planet.In my opinion, what's sucking the life out of the planet is the technology to keep alive those who shouldn't be. Babies are born with little to no chance at a real life, yet we use machines to keep them around out of our own selfish desire to save them at all cost.we think it's marvelous when even the most prenature babies are "saved" even if they'll be deaf, blind, and live thier lives in a wheelchair with no concept of what's going on around them.People are declared brain-dead from accidents, drug overdose, disease,whatever, and are kept alive at all cost,because we don't want to see them pass on.Why put a 90 year old person on life support when they stroke out? Just because we'll miss them if they die?
I believe in letting nature take its course.if that means me giving birth to five children, then I was meant to have five children.If it means I'll die when I'm 60,or 70,or 100, from a stroke,even if I could be kept alive in a vegetative state (thanks to machines) ,then so be it-let me die.Maybe one of my five children will one day grow up to be the one who convinces people that our reliance on technology to make us live longer is wrong.Maybe one of them will be the one who convinces the world that Nature and her laws NEED to be followed and respected.Maybe one of them will be the one who brings back common sense to a world ruled by money and greed.
It isn't the children being born who are killing our environment,or taxing our resources.It's those who refuse to follow the rules and laws of nature,because thier own lives might be a little less comfortable.
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| It's Tough Growing Old And Still Be Unwise... | Jun 30th. at 12:58:24 pm EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
The elderly lady with the unsolicited advice and banal comments needs to tone herself down, unless the kids were swarming around her like piranhas and attacking her.
While I do agree that kids should have better manners (some really don't- and do act like the developmentally disabled from time to time) - Adults should have manners too-after all they are old enough to know better. (some really don't) .
Besides, the bus company did state that she was banned-but not exiled- until she can keep some of her comments to herself.
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| Oh Geez | Jun 30th. at 2:09:58 am EDT
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Just A Wolf (Seward, Michigan) - Email Me
I can not fathom how any mother could be upset with this upstanding lady telling them that they need to be on birth control because Mexicans are taking over Utah. Perhaps she could provide data to reinforce her claims. A tri-fold pamphlet should do nicely. I don't think she should be banned from riding. She should be told to mind her own business.
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| The Way I See It | Jun 30th. at 1:15:01 am EDT
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antares (fort scott, Kansas) - Email Me
Here we have a woman with her 2 kids and their cousins all excited about riding a bus for the first time and an old lady starts in bitching at her. Yacking about something she know nothing about. Seems the old lady needs to get a life. Do any of you see yourselves?
Do no harm.....
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| Beyond Rude And Totally Racist!!! | Jun 29th. at 11:33:02 pm EDT
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Jenna (Cary, North Carolina) - Email Me
I honestly wonder how this "saintly" (as some have described her) old woman would feel if someone had said that they need to create a "Logan's Run" policy so we could have more space and resources for those who may contribute rather than those who have lived past their prime. I doubt that she would support such a "population control" policy. I also doubt that she would had made such a comment to a bus load of blond Brady bunch looking kids. The fact is, like or not, much of America was under Mexico's control and the Latin population boom we are seeing may very well be karmic. However you choose to view it, no mother (who is already stressed out by so many children. Trust me, I have two so I know abit about maternal stress) should be harrassed in such a manner in front of her children. Of course she knows about birth control! Every women who has just given birth is asked that question on her first post birth checkup. I support birth control for environmental and feminist reasons, but to attempt to push it on anyone, especially due to race, is just as bad as organizations such as the RCC trying to outlaw it from all.
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| ... | Jun 29th. at 7:44:53 pm EDT
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Draken (Bronx, New York) - Email Me - Web
The only groups of people I can think of who have more than three kids are moron...err, Mormons and those "Quiver" idiots. I don't see how anyone can bring a kid into a world where schools are clamping down on fun of any kind.
That being said, I should leave you with this bit of wisdom: "It's a vagina, not a clown car!"
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| That Story Says Nothing About What Really Happened | Jun 29th. at 5:57:23 pm EDT
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Shadowbear (Hillsboro, Oregon) - Email Me
I am one of the people who believe that having a large herd of children is totally wrong - we are too many to have a good, clean use of the planet. Not all of the people overpopulating are minorities - many white fundamentalist christians are having 10+ children - watch TLC and see some of them. I personally don't care if YOU can afford them, the planet cannot.
That being said, if the old lady was embarassing the mother or making her feel threatened then she should be off the bus. If the kids were totally out of control, mom should be off the bus. Not enough information in the article to know for sure what happened.
I ride the "lift van" here and, what I hate is the bus drivers who ask me where I go to church or tell me about jesus to save my soul. They get complaints to the company because you do feel trapped on a bus you have to ride when someone is preaching at you about anything, not just religion or birth control.
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| More Than Some Think | Jun 29th. at 4:57:02 pm EDT
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Kiki Circen (Escondido, California) - Email Me
I live in a largely Hispanic area, and have not seen anybody with more than three kids, maybe that's because the people with more than three are somewhere else, but, I've yet to see children misbehaving in a public area.
The desire to have large families can be applied to any racial backround. I've heard of white families of five kids. It's possible for anybody to want lots of kids, no matter what their ethnicity.
As long as the parents can take care of their children, provide adequately for each one, then, I personally, have no problems with it. Go ahead, have an anthill of kids for all I care, just make sure you can handle being the mother or father of 20+ children. I think of the children themselves first, they're the ones who are effected the most.
It was a rather short article, and I don't know each side of the story. I need to hear from the mother, the kids, the elderly woman, the other bus passengers, and the bus driver before drawing any conclusions about this.
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| Public Facilities On Terra | Jun 29th. at 4:23:12 pm EDT
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
Even privately operated bus stations and similar transit facilities join food and lodging services as public accommodations, a quasi-government designation, while this facility's name suggests it's operated by a government linked operating authority, like US Post Offices. As such, there had better be a lot more facts (as implied in the plurals of this article, not the given examples) to justify time, manner, and place regulation of disruptive speech, than what this article describes, or the facility isn't justified giving a trespass notice or complaint.
Given the issues of overpopulation and global warming, it's certainly reasonable to go far beyond a few snide remarks in socially ostracizing reckless breeders, and implementing public policies which make it difficult for them to survive and hatch yet more H. hubris, spreading humans like noxious weeds. That can be done by pricing tickets per person, no child discounts, by rules to require one adult chaperone per two minors under 10, and many other such policy practices to both limit conflicts from rugrats gone wild, and send a message that reckless breeders are contributing to the extermination of life as we know it on the planet. That inherently does call for de facto positions which do brand some religion and ethnic culture linked traditions as abusive and damaging to the Earth and all humanity, in a tensioned balance with also being linked to individual rights under present legal standards.
Why stop at "patch" suggestions? An easy to overhear discussion with a willing 3rd party about the free or subsidized human spay and neuter clinics concerned medical groups host in 2nd and 3rd world countries could be conducted in a fully legal manner, which doesn't involve accosting a target in ways disruptive to the functional reasons a bus station exists. It could send a passive-aggressive message that the reckless breeders are overdue to grow up over basic human ethics if they want to be respected rather than seen as noxious weeds, without directly attacking an individual, and send a message to kids that their mom's practices are not a good model to grow into repeating. Political activism or work with public-private partnerships to develop transportation policy (as I glance at my copies of the NTAD-2006 GIS data on 2 CD sets from US-DOT or think about a friend who administers a regional transportation authority) can also have far harsher impact on reckless breeders than a few snide comments made in a manner where speech can lawfully be regulated, not for its content, but the disruptive nature of when, where, and how it's used.
Of course a 76 year old lady is likely to know how to use ArcGIS, MapInfo, Dynamap 2000, or open GIS with 3rd party rendering, C++, and Python integration, while translating that to census data and Rulemaking Proceedings of several agencies, rather than be suspect for crude skills to tread the edges of speech law because of Alzheimers as opposed to bigotry?
I suspect the tiny percentage of people who can fully understand that last paragraph would be able to explain some of the deficiencies in Tiger 2000 (US census base for GeoCoding, etc) versus NavTeq sources thought to be more accurate but not precisely match official references with errors, plus have many non-technical experiences our vast and complex society and system of government inhibits most people intelligent enough to learn such things from every doing, due to time and expense limits. In reality, it's closer to Eleanor Roosevelt's observation, that "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people." In a bus station, there are philosopher kings to be found at times (I'd love to catch a Ritchie Havens on a bus) , but a median is more likely between those latter two classes. It's likely this 76 year old has never done a formal legal submission to a Federal agency, a bit different perspective than my last completing one yesterday.
Jumping into the WitchVOX fray of speculatory hypothesis, this 76 year old may be like a dog's Buddha nature. What if she has ADA grounds to sue the police and transportation authority for failing to accommodate her disability, postulated to be Level 1 Alzheimers? She might well have a serious legal claim, but lack the skills to pursue it because of the reason for the claim, which could be the same as the reason for using crude and disruptive means to express what is difficult to sort between intent to be a hateful bigot, and genuine concern for humanity or Gaia. This same kind of challenge in far worse forms is seen daily when judges repeatedly see bipolars off their meds, or extreme Borderlines the only effective cure for which according to the DSM is suicide, most likely if done before age 40. Exactly what if any extra leeway would be justified for disruptive actions due to documented mental health issues in this type of case, versus undocumented ones, or no ADA issues but merely lack of treacherous skills to empower oneself in a complex political system?
In the bigger picture of the complex, interconnected web of life, these people waiting to ride the bus end up as not just examples of how our real world systems are designed over centuries to favor money and education with more power, not treat all equally, but examples of just how tricky it is for people who do pay attention to the complex, extensive, often conflicting standards we've defined for out society, to sort out the precarious balances of what those standards mean in real life practice.
Did someone think it was just about using the bus to drag home groceries?
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| A Few Thoughts About This... | Jun 29th. at 4:12:12 pm EDT
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Eran Rathan (Old Town, Maine) - Email Me
firstly, i guess that i am biased, as both my family and my wife's family are huge (I'm the youngest of four, she's the oldest of seven) , but when there are that many kids around, they really don't have any other setting than 'rambunctious'...they'll bounce energy off of each other and end up all getting wound up.
secondly, riding the bus has nothing to do with income. I ride the bus because
A. it saves me money ($1.20 round trip vs. $3.20 a gallon in gas every day, not to mnetion wear on my car)
B. it gives me an excuse to exercise (i ride my bike to the bus stop)
C. it helps the environment by reducing the number of vehicles on the road (oh, yeah, saving the environment...it is one of those things that Pagans are supposed to be up on)
D. it gives me time to unwind and relax before I get home after work so that I don't take my work-stress out on my wife.
so, yeah, nothing to do with income (except that it saves me money to take the bus) .
Rudeness should be answered with politeness, or being ignored. I think that the bus driver was entirely correct in banning the old woman from the bus.
"If you haven't anything nice to say, say nothing at all."
Eran Rathan
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| I Look At Where This Happened | Jun 29th. at 2:21:46 pm EDT
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Opus the Poet (Garland, Texas) - Email Me - Web
I used to live in Mormonland (aka Utah) where at the time having a large family was considered not only a right but a responsibility. It might not be as much now as from what I've heard lately they are having water issues with the growth in population in the area. I also used to live in the very city where the confrontation took place, only at the time they didn't have public transit, and I would have to walk from the University to the nearest mall to buy things that weren't sold on campus. Anywho, there was some friction between someone worried about the local carrying capacity, and another with a huge family. I predict that this will become more frequent as water restrictions become more strict in the future.
Just MHO,
Opus
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| I Think This Is Less About Birth Control | Jun 29th. at 2:21:04 pm EDT
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booley (Saint Louis, Missouri) - Email Me
and more about how this woman is a well meaning but ignorant racist who was harrassing people on the bus.
If she just wants to make sure people are aware of thier reproductive options, there are plenty of way sot do it with out harassing people or accusign them of destroying the nation.
Her rights ended at the mother's nose.
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| Harrassment | Jun 29th. at 1:08:02 pm EDT
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Spijder (Bristol, Connecticut) - Email Me
It doesn't say enough about the incident to get a clear image of it let alone take a side one way or other.
If the woman made a single suggestion however unwanted the advice may be, the banning was beyond over the top.
But if the woman she was.. technically in a personal conversation with.. asked her to leave her alone and she continued speaking to her anyway, then yes she was harrassing the woman and the banning was well warranted.
Anyone approached with unwanted conversation from a stranger on a bus will have every reason to feel harrassed (even fearful especially considering this woman had her children with her) if even a ruder than necessary 'shut up leave me alone' is not respected.
Freedom of Speech should not supercede an individual's right to remove themselves from unwelcomed conversation no matter it's tone. There is a time and place for Freedom of Speech and on a bus where one is effectively trapped is not it.
It is actually a travesty of Freedom of Speech to physically corner a single individual in order to speak 'freely' at them. It's a shame our forefather's didn't have the vernacular to include a Freedom of Personal Space.
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| "First Amendment Rights?" | Jun 29th. at 12:42:22 pm EDT
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Greybird (Sullivan, Indiana) - Email Me
There are places where first amendment rights stop - they stop at intimidation, at making threats, and at disturbing the peace. Accosting strangers at a bus stop isn't exercising your rights.
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| Only This To Say | Jun 29th. at 12:06:01 pm EDT
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Libertarian (Langley, Washington) - Email Me - Web
If you can't feed em, don't breed em.
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