Abortion

1.From reading both websites they each argue against each other using the issue of rights against killing an unborn.  In the government prospective the laws seem to favor The National Right to Life and it seems that the NARAL Prochoice America group always must fight because laws restrict women’s rights and the abortion clinics are decreasing. With bills being passed Abortion is getting tougher especially for women that are; Medicaid patients, Peace Corps volunteers, Native Americans, Federal Prison inmates, Military soldiers and employees of the federal government.   The NARAL makes good points against the opposition to favor there situation. Things such as Violent Tactics, Crisis Pregnancy centers and Personhood shown by pro life supports hurts the pro life movement where the NARAL is trying to make a change with the law not using violent tactics. It seems that Abortion is losing in the debate where Abortion Clinics are closing down and laws are being passed. After reading both sites information my option does not change because women must have the right to choose if they want to keep the baby not the government or other organizations. Whether it was a mistake or rape if a women cannot support a child she must have the option to have an abortion.

2.As a student in high school the right of an abortion can have a significant effect on one’s life. An abortion may kill an unborn but will save the life of the teenager. A mistake that happened in high school should not jeopardize the women from not going to college and having to support a child when clearly she is not ready.  It is hard to make a decision on your own and I think Parents should have a right to know what their daughter is doing with the baby. The parents know more than the kids and could put a different prospective in the mindset of their child. I believe parents should have the right to consent because they A, have legal ownership of their daughter, and B, have more knowledge and have raised a kid before.

3.I believe the father should be notified of the decision of the female having  a abortion because the male is a part of the baby’s life. Rather the baby was to live or die the father still has a connection to the baby and should be able to know if his future son will live or die. The father absolute doesn’t have to have consent because he does not know the suffering of child birth and the 9 months process. Caring the baby and taking care of it is the women’s decision and she does not need the father’s acceptance of her decision.

4.Even though Illinois has a ban on abortion they do help the low income women, and is strong on women’s rights. I disagree on their abortion laws because Illinois population is very large and some women who want an abortion struggle to find a place that will carry out the proceeded. I want Illinois to become a state allowing abortion and hopefully one day they can help the women in need.

Death Penalty 3

Protecting the accused is helped by; the jury being qualified to appear in court, opening statements , defendant case and mitigating circumstances.

The system is set up in a way that guilty men still can get convicted. The suspects are provided with a lawyer, but the lawyer is usually hired by the government and it is hard to win a case.

The most humane way of killing would be the lethal injection. The injection is a quick and painless produce and is the most common use of execution today. The electric chair I believe is a cruel and unusual method of killing breaking the 8^th amendment. Nebraska got rid of the electric chair in 2008 because it was too cruel. The electric chair method is a painful and long death where 500 to 2000 volts of electricity strike the body lasting up to 30 seconds.

California has the most inmates on death row. A reason for this could be California population, a large population of gangs or that illegal immigrant have settled in California.  There are so many people waiting for death in California but there has only been 13 executions . Of the states with no death penalty laws, almost all are located in the North.  The number of death row inmates are the highest in the most populated areas which makes sense.

With seeing the new charts it does not change my prospective. A interesting fact a saw was that “in California found that those who killed whites were over 3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks and over 4 times more likely than those who killed Latinos” As I saw earlier California has a high population of Latinos but some are illegal and it is interesting that killing an illegal immigrant gives you a higher percent of the death penalty.  The debate on the death penalty is very close with 47 % preferring death to 48 % preferring life without parole. On reducing crimes the public voted that drugs and lack of law enforcement where the cause. Having the death penalty barley influenced crime.

The death penalty is an issue with no right or wrong answer. But when innocent people are dying because of death laws put in place there needs to be a answer. Death Penalty information I would say in neutral in its view describing negatives of the Death penalty (execution methods) or the positives (Killings reduction). With laws in place as the death penalty I still do not believe it would convince a killer to kill or not. Before he shoots I do not believe he is thinking if his state has the penalty or not.

-Brad Gutmann

To be executed or not be executed that is the question

When deciding on weather Clifford Boggess, the man who murdered 2 men should be able to live was hard to decide. But after watching “The Execution” the film relived the story of the killer and the information did not lie. There is not enough evidence to pursue a judge to keep Boggess alive.

To defend Boggess the lawyers may argue the mitigating facts. He had no mother, he was honest, had honors in high school, had an abuse/ drugged birth mother, and he had changed a lot since the murder. Boggess was older now and was not the killer he was in his 20’s. A mistake made in Bogges earlier life cost him his own. Bogges changed though years of prison as he found God and admitted his mistakes. Many people can change and turn their life around but a murder is something that cannot be changed. The aggravating factors such as; committing a brutal death, being proud of his killing, going to jail was not enough for punishment, threaten to kill judge, threaten to kill ex- wife, and being a psychopath are factors that cannot overturn the case. Boggess killed 2 men and paid the price. The families lost their loved ones from Bogges and some have still not gotten over the murder. I believe that only one of the families got justice from the execution of Boggess. The man who brother was killed (Frank Collier) was very angry that Boggess was still alive when his brother was dead. The other family (Roy Vance Hazelwood) I believe did not receive justice as they emotion had not changed and they were still grieving over the death. By Boggess dying it did not bring their love one back to life.

Nabozny v Podlesny : Bully

In class we watched the video Bullied, the story of Jamie Nabozny. Jamie was physically and mentally abused by classmates from elementary school all the way to high school. When he complained to the school principle in elementary school the Principal did not do anything and no punishment was brought onto the boys. When Jamie reached High School the problem only escalated and when he reported the bullying to the principle nothing was done. Jamie was scared for his life and ran away from home. Jamie parents could not afford a private education for their son and Jamie had to go back to his public school. Jamie was abused throughout his experience in high school and when he graduated he sued the school district for failing to protect him. Jamie won the case and won 1 million dollars. Following up on the event Jamie's courage to stand up to the School district led to the NASP leadership agreeing to sign onto the Amici Curiae Brief along with the National Association of Social Workers and other organizations.

This movie on Jamie Nabozny was a reality check and an important film. I am sure things similar to what Jamie experienced  happen on daily basis but kids are afraid to speak out. The problem is when kids do not express  their problem to either a parent or social worker some will become depressed and others will take their life like some in the past week.

At DHS I believe bullying is not a big issue but it still  may occur. I think at DHS the physical aspect of abuse is not occurring but maybe some emotional and tauting my be occurring. I think the bullying may happen from people joking around but the jokes may offend people. I also think specific groups are not targeted as being bullied but individuals are the one being made fun of.

Finding a solution for bullying is hard to come by as it happens uncontrollable. From cyber bullying on the Internet to text messages there is not a way schools can prevent the problems. Schools can prevent bullying happening in schools by having a zero tolerance for bullies and social workers.

Chile

Today 33 miners of Chile were successfully rescued , after being stuck in a mine for 69 days. What is more astonishing is that no one died. The trapped minors where very lucky that the Chile government knew what they were doing. The government had dealt with Hurricane relief and were successful in quick recovery. I believe America should look at how Chile handles disaster and learn some tips from them. The US has had Hurricane Katrina and the Oil Spill and where very slows to react to the issue. In Chile the government took charge, collected anything they could get from other countries, no matter what country was and had multiple strategies going into rescue mission. 

When Schools go to far in privacy issues

In the 3 articles read, all where major voilations of privacy rights. Some schools got in trouble when they disobey the 4th admentment rights and went beyond there intuall purpose. In the first article about the 13 year old girl who was stripped search for allegelly hiding ibuprofen. She was searched in a manor which was illegal and an embarrassment to the school .  When the court covered the issues they quoted "We are pleased that the Supreme Court recognized that school officials had no reason to strip search Savana Redding and that the decision to do so was unconstitutional". 

In the second article of  the case of cell phone, a girl's phone  was searched and innoportite pictures were found. Privacy again is being intruded. Like the TLO vs NJ case, the teacher who saw the phone is going beyond the purpsoe of the search. 

In the 3rd reading of Burlison v. Springfield Public Schools,Central High School announced over the public address system that the school was going into "lockdown" and that students were prohibited from leaving their classrooms. This also violates the rights of the students (1st admentment) and there lockers where searched which is violating the privaxcy policy.

In all these cases schools have gone too far in searches.

There needs to be a line on what is appropriate for a search and when privacy is being invaded. It is one thing to pee in a cup but another to make a student feel uncomfortable.

drug testing

After days of the debate of drug testing i belive drug testing should be allowed in schools. With drugs only becoming more popular in high schools around America drug testing must be instituted. In schools that have used drug testing the amount of usage has declined and lives have been saved. The debate against a drug test is the testing itself. In order to give a drug test a urine sample is needed. People believe that there privacy is getting invaded when a urine sample is taken. What is the difference of going to a doctor to have a urine sample.School officials may search a student if that official has a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is in the process of being committed or reasonable causes to believe that the search is necessary to maintain school discipline or enforce school policies (NJ v TLO). A punishment for failing a drug test is a suspension from an extracurricular activity. Testing students who participate in extracurricular activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing the School District's legitimate concerns in preventing deterring and detecting drug use. By testing for drugs and argument can be that the school is invading the privacy of others (Pink). When kids are at a party they can run away from peer pressure from using the excuse of being drug tested at school. Having drug tests helps get rid of peer pressure.

Lohan goes to jail

In pop culture news Lindsey Lohan is going back to jail. With  a failed drug test Lohan is expected to be sentenced for 30 days. But is Jail the right place for her? Just a few months ago she went to jail and relapsed. Intense Rehab is the place for Lohan to go. In Jail she will be off the substance for a period of time and she has an addiction she can not control. Putting her behind bars is not going to kill the addiction.

Freedom of Religion Sept 22 2010

I belive religion should be banned from schools. School is a place to learn and religion is something that should happen outside of school. School have it wrong about the Pledge of allgince. In this pledge the word "God" is stated and this is wrong becasue some people do not belive. When the survey asked; Do you feel that the freedom to worship as one chooses applies to all religious groups regardless of how extreme their views are, or was it never meant to apply to religious groups that most people would consider extreme or fringe, 2010 61 percent of students voted YES. This percent should be 100 and this stat is saying that not every one agrees with all religions which can casue a conflict. School learning can be disrutpted is relgion has a factor therefore relgion in school should be banned. -BRad Gutmann

9-11-01

The date reads 9-11. A call for help. But help was too late. On September 11th 2001 two airplanes were hijacked and flew into the world trade center. No one ever saw it coming. New York city, a city that represents the USA was in ruins.We had hear about terrorist attacks in other countries but now one though America would be apart of one. September 11 brought the USA together. Because of that event, America became more united and there feeling towards patriotism grew stronger. In 2010 we still remember this tragic day in US history.

Brad Blog 1.0

What is Speech Code? A speech code is any rule or regulation that limits, restricts, or bans speech beyond the strict legal limitations. This code has helped and hurt many students and is very popular on college campus. Speech Code is an important rule in today society because it prevents discrimination towards harassment. Speech Code is put into effect in colleges so kids can’t not get away with discrimmitory harassment, saying “i have the freedom of speech". So is this right? People opposing speech codes say that speech codes are part of general movement of political correctness. In my option speech codes is needed it colleges campus. Speech code bans discrimination, racism and prevents violence. a