On Saturday, along with demonstrators worldwide, People for Peace and Justice in Utah will hold a noon rally protesting the impending war with Iraq, and then march from the City-County Building to the Capitol for another rally, with speakers, music, poets and other activities.
This time, along with the usual faces, the antiwar demonstrators will include scientists and doctors in white coats and stethoscopes, members of the Union for Concerned Scientists and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
William White, a University of Utah research scientist, member of the Union for Concerned Scientists and a Vietnam vet, walked into a People for Peace and Justice planning meeting a few weeks ago and asked to help. White is working on understanding and finding a cure for cystic fibrosis; he says war's impact on medical research would be devastating.
"Most of us in clinical research are anti-war," he said Wednesday. "I would say we're virtually unanimous in our condemnation of Bush's foreign policy.
"I'm a member of Amnesty International and a dedicated letter-writer," he said. "But when I read that the State Department had ordered body bags, I decided I had to do more."
Doing more meant finally getting a cell phone and turning his attention from the lab to the streets. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Advertisement
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The Rev. Dan Webster, an Episcopal priest, has been waving a sign in front of the Federal Building in downtown Salt Lake City every week since October. With the core group of Salt Lake activists, Webster has persistently demonstrated against the impending war on Iraq at the regular Thursday evening rally and on several weekends at the Capitol and the City-County Building.
Lately, he says, the nature of the crowd of demonstrators has been changing.
"There are many more mainstream citizens demonstrating now," he says. "Saturday will probably show that even more."
Salt Lake pediatrician Louis Borgenicht has been a regular peace demonstrator. Spurred in part by a recent IPPNW report on probable collateral damage caused by a war in Iraq, he has asked colleagues to join him Saturday, marching as doctors against war.
"Collateral damage means people being injured and deprived nutritionally and socially. Physicians have an antiwar position that goes beyond the politics to the public health aspects.
"Where there's no cure for disease, prevention is the only approach. In this case, war is the disease," Borgenicht says.
Besides colleagues, White says he has called on Democrats, Republicans, the mayor, the arts community and the religious community to join the rally.
" This war is stoppable," he says. "It will take getting the ambivalent American out of his chair and asking questions."
Jay A. Jacobson, medical ethics chief at LDS Hospital, says, "My highest priorities are the health and safety of my patients and those who might be. The concept of war in general is alarming because it means danger to the health and safety of my patients.
"In this particular conflict, it hasn't been made clear to me that the risk from Saddam Hussein to the health and safety of Americans outweighs the risk presented by this war."
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