May 3, 2002 4 min read

Scowl: The state House of Representatives this past week passed an amendment to appease pro-lifers during this election season that in essence would cut all state funding to any family planning clinic (read Planned Parenthood here) that offers abortions or even mentions abortions. This could create even more unwanted pregnancies and leave untreated diseases in poor women. Women’s clinics do far more than make abortion referrals. The bulk of their practices revolve around annual gynecological exams that include Pap smears and other tests to detect cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. Women also receive counseling in contraception along with prescriptions of birth control pills.

Pennsylvania already has a restrictive abortion law, with a waiting period that prevents women from making rash decisions, and the state requires parental notification for teen-agers. Threatening to cut off financial aid to clinics that talk about abortion or make abortion referrals equates to a state-sponsored gag order. Further this all flies in the face of federal requirements that mandate clinics discuss abortion options with low-income pregnant women. If this becomes law centers will have to make a choice between federal or state dollars, not both. Either way poor women will lose valuable health services.

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Scowl: For some strange reason a woman vice principal at a California high school thought it was her business to know what type of underwear girls were wearing to a school dance.

Parents are rightly calling for the dismissal of the principal who allegedly lifted girls’ skirts in public to make sure they weren’t wearing thong underwear at a dance. To think that Laurel Highlands School District parents reacted so strongly when the school told them how to dress their kids. Imagine a principal peeking and making judgment calls on undergarments.

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Scowl: A story from Miami, Fla., is enough to break anyone’s heart. A 5-year-old girl has been missing for more than a year and neither the state’s Department of Children and Families who was supposed to have custody nor the little girl’s grandmother even knew she was missing.

When a caseworker went to the grandmother’s house to check on the child, the grandmother said the agency had taken her away the year before. Pity the poor child. Her caseworker failed to check on her monthly and her family didn’t bother to track her.

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Scowl: Why doesn’t Linda Lay just squirt some turpentine onto the Enron flame. The wife of Enron’s ex-chief executive is planning to open an antique and secondhand shop called Jus’ Stuff. It will feature the family’s personal property and furniture from rental property. Mrs. Lay apparently found that some of the family’s furnishings were just “stuff” and they could do without. Her shop obviously is worlds apart from the garage sales former Enron employees have been forced to hold to buy groceries.

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Scowl: Three main ingredient go into the mix in creating an area ripe for development: good highways, and adequate sewerage and water systems. These topics draw yawns from most folks, but unless these projects are planned and executed, communities will remain asleep while others prosper. A Bucks County firm looking to develop 76 acres near Centerville drove that concept home once again this week. Robert Schleeweiss, president of Building Services of America Inc., although excited about the potential from property along the Mon-Fayette Expressway said he won’t close the deal until sewage service is guaranteed. That’s something the borough, neighboring township and the sewage authority can’t do as they were caught unprepared.

Extending pipes isn’t difficult but having a plant capable of treating the additional waste is. To their credit, the municipalities seem willing to work together to lobby state and federal sources for funds to expand the plant. But all this takes time. Other communities along the path of the Mon-Fayette should be asking what are we doing now to prepare.

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Wow: The first Habitat for Humanity house constructed in Fayette County will be dedicated on Saturday before the family of Tia Lewis moves into 340 High St., Brownsville.

The Redevelopment Authority of Fayette County in 2000 sponsored the start of the a county Habitat chapter to bring the successful program of helping low-income families step into home ownership, partly by investing sweat equity into the project.

Thanks to community donations of money and skills, the first house is done and more projects are on the way. Congratulations to all who took part. And if you missed this production and want to participate in the next, call 724-437-1547, extension 13.