miércoles, 15 de diciembre de 2010

NPC 9 Cause and Effect

NPC 8 Debate "In Vitro Fertilization"



In Vitro Fertilization or Insemination

 The family is one of the most important aspects in our society; every person in every family represents an elemental part of this institution, and for the majority of the human beings the family is the core of the life. As we know, the common family is composed by parents and children; however some couples have problems to conceive kids, but know they have options to become parents, for example in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination. The problem is that in some countries this kind of practices are not allowed and have different positions regarding the methods used.

In terms of law, the government of Costa Rica does not allow this kind of practice since 2000, but along this years, some couples have been claimed for the this law to change. At this time there are almost nine couples whom have been sued the government because this law in front of the CIDH (Inter-American Commission of Human Rights), they said that there is a human right to have a family and Costa Rica is violating this right for those families that cannot conceive children. Because of that and in order to avoid a trial, the government of Costa Rica has been presented a new law to allow the in vitro fertilization in our country, but with some conditions, for example: there is forbidden to store, freeze and discard ovules, and all the fertilized ovules must be implanted in to the uterus of the women who produced them; the use of this kind of conditions is to not go over the Costarrican’s idiosyncrasy which said: “To protect the human life before the born” 

From the religious point of view, there are several important points regarding in vitro fertilization, between them are two principal procedures or methods: homologous or heterologuos fertilization, the legal procedure for the church is the homologous, because use the ovule from the wife and the semen from the husband,  working as a help or complement for the fecundation which is the principal purpose of the marriages; at the same time, the heterologous procedures has the same goal but in contrast of the homologous this use only one, the ovule or semen of the couple and the other part came from a bank of sperm, catalogs of donors, or use a surrogate-mother. The heterologous process it what the church is against, because interrupt the focus of the marriages including a third person in their life.  Another point of view is related to semen collection, for the church, this is not legal since this procedure use really often the masturbation and for them this is a sign of disassociation of the unit of the conjugal act.

For the science part this procedure is preferred for the quality of the semen and for better results. One of the achievements is give the option for people that is unable to raise their own family due to different circumstances, for example infertility or genetics problems. Among with this the scientist has lost of enemies regarding these procedures, most of the time related to the idea that a fertilized cell is not yet a human being. During science history the discoveries of the most famous scientist have been discussed and discard by church most of the time and society as well. In the other hand, scientists believe that the development of the human body in women is not complete until they have a child; others say this is not true but lots of studies have proved them wrong. The constant development of technology has helped to increase the families that try new procedures like this one in order to have children, and every day more tools and ideas are in the market waiting for people needed to take them and complete their dreams.

The moral / ethics position of the church is an issue because there is a lots points of view contrast the position of the science and put us to think about the right that the couples have to create or form a family. Related to the law, it is important the right of the humans being to procreate but also is important to take in mind the consequences that the children could have in a future when has to in front his or her reality.

NPC 7 The Blind Side



The Message from the Blind Side


The blind side is based in a true story about two different people’s situation. In this movie we found a family with a very good life situation, and a boy with very poor life conditions; Leigh Anne helped Mike Oher to improve his life situation, and mike helped her to see the other reality, the other side of the life. At the end of the movie we got the message that it does not matter the way of life, people can change or improve their conditions with only a little help.

Leigh Anne was a very successful woman, she had a perfect life: a great family , a very good husband, smart kids, lots of good education and all that anyone wish have, a big house, lots of money, cars, luxury, high status, a great work, but most important she was an excellent good person, she had a great heart, and she liked to help people a lot.

Mike Oher, known as “Big Mike”, was one more of these people outside in bad economic situation, his life specifically, was so bad: he had no home due to his mother’s drugs addiction, he has no idea whose his father was, his neighborhood was so violent with many drugs, and no chances of good education; however, he was a very good person, with a big heart too, and a great sense of protection.

When Leigh Anne met mike, he was so alone, and she invited him to sleep in her house, no matter what people said, she also gave him food, clothes, a car, but the most important she gave him love and education to the point where he qualified to get a NCAA Division I athletic scholarship; Mike gave her lots of protection, and he showed him new knowledge about the difficult side of the life, she was a very rich person, and her life seems to be just easy.

As a conclusion, we can see that it is not important how difficult or bad something is, or how good it is, there are many people that need help in one way or another, and that the only thing they need is some support or an opportunity to change their life to succeed… As the Beatles said… All you need is love!

NPC 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Immigration


Advantages and Disadvantages of Immigration in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is one of the most grateful countries with the immigrants we received and this is giving CR advantages but at the same time disadvantages. Since Costa Rica have very good conditions of life, the amount of people migrating to our country have been increased. In this moment we can see many immigrant people working in our streets, which are coming from many different parts of the globe. For example, we can find Chinese people, Dominicans, Colombians and people from Nicaragua too. In order to cite two of the most important advantages, first we have the culture aspect, many of this new residents are giving to our country many kinds of culture like food, music or handmade crafts. Then we have the work or job aspect, usually the Costarican people don’t like to make some kinds of “extra-work” jobs, for example “coffee recollection” and the immigrant people do not have any prejudgment to do it. If we we talk about the disadvantages, in Costa Rica there are, approximately, between 400000 and 600000 people from Nicaragua and there like 200000 people from other countries like Colombia or China; this is causing a increase on the overpopulation of the country, some places like Heredia or San Jose are now restricted to built because of that expansion; another disadvantage is,         for example, the increase of social insecurity due to problems of adaptation. As a conclusion, the immigration is part of the global reality, and is true it have advantages as well as disadvantages, but in order to get a better result of this we must put in practice the tolerance of every kind of people no mater where they came from.

Works cited      
1.       Wikipedia, Census 2000/ Demografía Costa Rica (Last update Oct, 2010 )
2.        Cruz,Sergio I-ESCOSUR, Inmigración en España: Valoración de ventajas y desventajas / Migration On Line, Oct 2007

NPC 4 Poverty



The Story of Carlos
              Carlos grew up with four brothers and two sisters in Cartago; he was the 1th one to come into the world in 1964. When he was six years old his father died, and six years later, his mother too; they moved with a very old aunt and she was enable to work, so at this age he became a father for his brothers and sisters, and he started worked in a shoe store. Every day, when he finished the work in the shoe store, he helps doing many things in the neighborhood, for example, “do mandados” (deliveries), and the neighbors paid him with food most of the times. One day, one of the neighbors called David, who knew his situation, told him: Because your condition, you must start thinking in your future and your family future too, I know it is too difficult to be the person who maintains your family at your age, but it is extremely necessary for you to start to study again in order to get a better way to be out of poverty. David was finishing Medicine Mayor, so he started teaching Carlos all what he could about how to be a good doctor, and once he became a real doctor, he asked Carlos to work with him as an assistant, at this moment Carlos was eighteen. Because his new job, Carlos realized how much he like the medicine and he start studying Medicine in the UCR when he was twenty, after finishing the “Bachillerato por madurez”. Because his extremely bad economic situation, the university gave him a “scholarship” to help him complete the studies. He worked very hard to be a student and give support to his family at the same time, and because the inspiration the study was for him, he takes another work in the university to pay his brothers and sisters education too; the younger of his brothers at this time was ten. When he was twenty five, all his brothers and sisters finished primary school. The time step over and now Carlos is a very well recognized doctor in the country and all his brothers and sisters are very good professionals. This is a real example of no matter how difficult the situation can be, everything have a solution, and the better way to do it is only with effort, patience, and love.

NPC 3 Weapons of Mass Destruction



Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction is a Threat for Peace and Social Security

          The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a threat for peace and social security, this kind of weapons can kill or seriously injured many people at the same time; a weapon of mass destruction can be Chemical, Nuclear or Biological. After the conflicts the world had since past world wide wars like the 1rst World War, the 2nd World War or the Cold War, the proliferation of this kind of weapons has been increased; most of the countries which develop massive destruction weapons is because money and power. Last Sunday I saw a movie called “Epidemic”, it starts with a man who got a very weird case of a disease, suddenly his health became worst, and he died, a few hours after all the people who had contact with this guy became sick, and just a few hours later the epidemic was in almost all the states, when the movie goes to end, the doctor who is fighting against the illness, discovered that the epidemic begun in a army intelligence laboratory department whose created a virus (biological massive weapon) as an experiment in order to have a “defense for the country”, the problem begun when a monkey ran away from the laboratory and infect the first person, the virus was so strong, so it became in an epidemic very fast. At the end of the movie the government decided to “erase” the hospital where all the sick people were, throwing a big missile over the place, but the doctor found the monkey who ran away and created an anti-virus and saved all the people. Nowadays, some developed nations such as US is trying to disarm these “producers countries” in order to avoid the danger or the possibility of these countries to attack other nations and cause, for example,  a new world war… (this was the reason of the disarm of Irak in 2003). As a conclusion, the use and creation of this kind of weapons, from wherever you can see it is very dangerous and as we know “it is better prevent to be sorry” ,so it is time to start fighting against these super dangerous weapons. 

NPC 2 Global Warming






 Certainly Global Warming is a problem in our times, but we still on time to do something!!!


Global Warming is something that we have now as a problem, but, we are still on time to do something and everything begins from our own house, below some examples of what we can do to help the Earth to survive Global Warming.

First, use not plastic bags for market this helps to produce less garbage in our houses and if each house start doing this, it is sure that something will change. Second, start recycling, with this we will be able to help avoiding produce more and more trash or at least using that to create something new

For a conclusion, there are many other ways to help the earth environment, as use less electricity in our houses, or stop using the car for everything and plan some other ways to avoid use the car  always for example carpooling to go work. At you can see it is too easy do something, so STOP GLOBAL WARMING! 

NPC 1 Domestic Violence


Domestic violence is in our society since the beginning of everything, but can we stop this now?
Over the years the world has been learning how to respect people rights, sex, ethnicity, believes… but, violence at home is still a problem. Most of the time, violence victims remain quiet because they are afraid about how to continue without “this person” who provides the basic support of the house, or doubts, about leaving their children without an important member of the family, for example a parent or a brother. Because of that, it is necessary to demonstrate these people how capable they are to step out the aggression situation, and most important, show them that the power to get over the bad days is all into themselves. A beautiful example of this is the story of Felicia; she married a successful and well educated man but she did not had, even the primary school, so he used to humiliate her because the difference of education between them, her husband was an alcoholic too; every time he gets drunk she “steal” money from his wallet in order to use it to pay her scholarship, one day she came to her husband and said -Do not make any plan for tomorrow night, it is my graduation at the university- as you can imagine her husband was shocked and a kind of nonbeliever, the night after they went to the graduation and since this day and after 5 years of bad days, they started living a beautiful and plenty marriage without humiliation or alcoholism. This happened 25 years ago and now Felicia is the principal of one of the biggest High Schools in Heredia. Sometimes, the victims of domestic violence do not notice that bravery and trust in themselves is what they need to start doing something and solve the problems, so if you know someone on this situation, start from there… let them know. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJF50kwwRJE&feature=related

DO SOMETHING!!!