From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: NBC News Blackout on Black Senatorial Candidate
Keywords: slavery, pro-life
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 12 Nov 92 19:25:28 GMT

In <BxDwJ3.71z@aplcenmp.apl.jhu.edu> akbloom@aplcenmp.apl.jhu.edu (Keith Bloom) writes:

>nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:

>>Last night, NBC Nightly News carried information about women and minority
>>candidates.  It said that there were 11 women candidates for the US Senate,
>>and over a hundred (I forget the exact number) for the House.  When it
>>came the turn of Blacks, however, all we were told was that there were
>>approximately 60 candidates for the House.

>Mr. Nyikos' article seems to have been caught in a time warp, since he
>posted it the night before the election and it hasn't reached this
>site until today (November 6).

In fact, yours was one of the earliest sites!  Apparently nothing of 
mine from Nov. 2 on got posted any earlier.  I have no idea where the
posts were hibernating either.

>As someone else has already pointed out, there were at least two:
>Alan Keyes in Maryland and Carol Moseley Braun in Illinois.  If NBC
>did indeed fail to mention any Black candidates for U.S. Senate, it
>was a grievous fault; but Mr. Nyikos cannot plausibly claim that the
>oversight was due to Keyes' pro-life views, because Braun is decidedly
>pro-choice.

I can still claim it, though less plausibly.  NBC news might have
decided that if it said there were two, then the legions of people
who knew about Ms. Braun might have wondered, "Who is the other one?"

>To make matters even worse for him, the Republican National Committee
>decided to cut off financial support for his campaign, on the grounds
>that he had no chance of winning.  It's hard to get much media
>attention if you have no money and if your own party doesn't think
>you're a viable candidate.

I wasn't expecting much media coverage, I was only hoping for bare
acknowledgement of his existence.  See again what I wrote above.

>>The state of Maryland also has the most radically pro-choice laws
>>on aboriton, outstripping Roe v. Wade and even FOCA, the so-called
>>Freedom of Choice Act.

>It doesn't outstrip Roe v. Wade; it falls short of Roe by including
>provisions for parental notification.  (Those provisions can be waived
>under some circumstances.)  I'd like to see some documentation for the
>assertion that Maryland has "the most radically pro-choice laws."
>What are the abortion laws in New York, California, and Oregon (which
>passed a pro-choice referendum a couple of years ago)?

In the _Village Voice_ quite a few months ago, Nat Hentoff went at this
law with all the rhetoric at his command, detailing how it allows abortions
at any time for fetal "defects", and when a legislator wanted to amend
it to say "serious defects," he was voted down, in part because the 
person who introduced the bill threatened to withdraw it if a single
word was changed.

>Anyone who has thought about abortion for more than thirty seconds has
>given the matter far more thought than George Bush.

You are exaggerating for effect.  Why would he repeatedly veto legislation
with lots of attractive features (even for him) because of
abortion-supporting clauses, if he hadn't given the matter SOME thought?

Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections