Bravo • 1
World • 1 - 2
Entertainment • 3
BRAVO MEDICAL MAGNET HIGH SCHOOL | LOS ANGELES, CA | VOL. XXXX, ISSUE III | WWW.BRAVOWEB.LAUSD.NET May 2019
Senior Award Night By: Kissel Martinez
On May 17, 2019, Bravo had a senior award night that took place in Bravo’s gym. It was a day where seniors were recognized for their hard work and achievements in front of their peers and families that attended as well. Some parent and student volunteers spent time in decorating the gym to make this senior award night more memorable. The senior award event started at 5:00 p.m. with the mariachi band playing and singing some songs. After that, our principal, Dr. Lopez, presented Shifa Hossain and Jerry Ruvalcaba as the salutatorians, since they both ranked second highest in the 2019 graduating class. Tammy Tran was announced as Bravo’s 2019 valedictorian, but unfortunately was not present at the ceremony as she was participating in the LA City Finals. Then, they presented a video created by the yearbook staff that showed memorable moments where students along with teachers and other staff members had throughout the year. Finally, after the video finished playing, the Bravo counselors, our vice principals - Mr. Martinez, and Ms. Ramos - announced individually the awards of every senior. A Bravo student’s parent said, “I thought the event was really nice, but I would have enjoyed it more if there was someone in charge of translating what was said in English to Spanish because I didn’t really understand the awards that were given and I would just clap whenever I saw the audience clapping and cheering. I really hope that they can add this feature for the senior award nights in the following years, so that parents who don’t understand English can be able to understand what is said.” An anonymous Bravo student stated, “I really liked how before the event started, there were student volunteers close to the entrance of the gym, giving the students attending the event, a paper where they wrote their names, so that the people announcing the senior receiving the award(s) wouldn’t call someone who wasn’t in the event. I just felt that this was really smart and organized by the staff.”
Abortion: Mixed Opinions
World
By: Edith Romero and Angelica Aguilar
Last week, on May 14, 2019, many Southern states began to pass anti-abortion laws creating a ripple of controversy throughout the country. Alabama enacted one of the nation’s strictest abortion law, which became the first bill to place an altogether ban on abortion. Under the bill, abortion at any stage of pregnancy will be considered a felony and it provides no exceptions. Missouri, the eighth state this year to pass abortion restrictions, passed a bill that bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have also passed laws where the detection of a fetal heartbeat prohibits women from aborting. These laws would minimize the time a woman has to abort as the baby’s heart is heard at about six weeks, a time when many women do not know they are pregnant. Utah and Arkansas are allowing the procedure to be done until the middle of the second trimester. Until now, the laws have been taken into effect, and they are expected to undergo court battles. However, proponents of the bills are hoping the laws will reach the Supreme Court, where their goal is to overturn the constitutional right Roe v. Wade established in 1973. Clarke D. Forsythe, one of Americans United for Life’s lawyer (an anti-abortion advocacy group) said to Fox News, “Some sponsors evidently want to set up a test case to challenge Roe v. Wade,” Source: Google images
Planned Parenthood says in-clinic abortion is very common and is considered one of the safest medical procedures. However, similar to other gynecological procedures, abortion does contain risks. The chances of problems rise the later the abortion is done, and if sedation or general anesthesia is used. There are times when the abortion doesn’t work and the woman is still pregnant. In some cases, pregnancy tissue is left in the uterus, blood clots form in their uterus, heavy bleeding might occur, or an injury to the cervix, uterus or other organs, as well as other consequences. In severe cases, women might have constant periods of two or more hours of heavy bleeding from their vagina, soaking through more than two maxi pads in an hour, severe pain or discomfort in their belly that medication can’t control, or a fever of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. Although, in rare cases, abortion could be life-threatening, it does not create problems for future pregnancies such as birth defects, premature birth, low birth weight, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, or infant death. - CONTINUES ON THE NEXT PAGE
Source: Google images
2 WORLD VOL. XXXX, ISSUE III
MAY 2019
Over 400 rallies, some organized by Planned Parenthood, were held on Tuesday, May 21, 2019 to protest the new restrictions on abortion; entire families were seen in the demonstrations. Angela Torres told CBC News, “These are my kids . . . I want them to live in a place where they have equal access to healthcare that’s evidence based and not legislative based.” Rafael Woldeab, another supporter said, “I shouldn’t have control over your body, you shouldn’t have control over mine.” Bravo students were asked about their opinions and their stand on the situation. This is what they had to say: Zilin Zhang Class of 2021 “Abortion. I personally think it’s the woman’s choice to choose if she wants to keep the child or to get an abortion, because she is the one with the child. She’s the one that’s mainly responsible for the child, so I personally think that women should have the right to choose if they want to keep the child or not. Men should not be the ones making the choice for us. That’s how I see it.… I just think it is part of people’s freedom to choose. ” Kayla Maldonado Class of 2021 “I think that abortion should be more regulated. I don’t think there should be a law completely banning it, because people are going to try and find a way to abort the child anyway. So I think, instead, we should have more laws for it. More rules, like how at 24 weeks you can’t have an abortion anymore. Something like that. But I don’t think we should completely get rid of it.” Juan Hernandez Class of 2019 “I think that women should make their own decisions. I don’t think men should be in charge of women’s bodies. Abortion is not something that should be restricted because everyone has different circumstances and restricting a specific group of people is wrong. I think [the abortion law] shouldn’t go through because that voting seems unfair. I wouldn’t want someone deciding what to do with my body, and so I feel that women should have the right to decide.” Juny Ardon Class of 2019 “I will begin by saying that I respect both sides of the argument. I’m not against anyone’s freedom of speech or what they say but I will begin by saying that my stance is: one should have the freedom of choice. The choice of choosing whether to have a baby or not. Especially if they are under certain circumstances like rape or anything, and so I think it should be the choice of a woman. It is her body, she’s the one giving birth, not a politician. I’m very much pro-choice and when it comes to the argument of when a baby is taken out of the body and put into a system because the mother doesn’t want it, there’s already one more person in a broken system of foster care and the abortion system of course. That costs us more money as a country and for sure that baby will not be growing up to be a productive member of this society because there is not enough money to fund a proper life for them. So I believe that it’s the choice of a woman to not fund for that kid or to care for that kid and so she should have the choice of not having it.” Shafin Hosain Class of 2019 “Some conservatives say, just some people say, that abortions cost a lot of money. So they might go from the economic standpoint instead of the moral standpoint. If abortions cost a lot of money how much do you think foster care costs? It’s a lot more than abortion. Your tax money is going to be used either way, at least choose the cheaper option if you’re going from the economic perspective. For moral, if you believe life is conceived at that time, I can’t really argue with you there because you believe in that. There’s no scientific evidence here. There’s no argument for that so I respect people who are pro-life but if they go too far, like the Alabama bill, that´s extreme.” Ty´Jae Jenkins Class of 2019 “It kinda makes sense to see how far the Republican platform is actually going to fo with their technicalities and laws. But it’s actually really harsh because now there’s a lot of rape cases with a lot of young kids who are pregnant and cant get abortions now. It’s either get an abortion and go to jail or go through with the abortion. I would say that it doesn’t affect me but I know it does because we have conservatives here and we have a very conservative country so I don’t know how it’s going to work out. We’ll just have to wait until someone sues the state for it. Other than that I have no comment.” Joyce Chung Class of 2020 “I believe that abortion shouldn’t be illegal because it’s up to the woman to abort the child or not because let’s say that the woman got raped and they were still at college or high school, then they would have to give up their life. They wouldn’t be able to continue their education or you know they would have to give up all their future just because of that child and she has all that responsibility. I think that she has the choice to not have the baby.” Ekta Patel Class of 2020 “The law shouldn’t be able to control a woman’s choice in her life. The baby inside the woman . . . it’s her choice of what to do with her body and the government should not control her life choices [especially if the government is mostly men]. They don’t understand what a woman has to go through when she is pregnant and how it’s going to impact her life, so what right do they have to make laws that control her body and her choices.” Hermes Agustin Class of 2020 “I am actually in support of the laws’ decision to illegalize some abortion, mostly due to the fact that it’s just essentially about the babies life to me. Honestly, about the fact that if we are just going to allow women the choice to kill babies then I am just not in favor of it because I mean, sure it is a good option for females to have a choice about abortion, but then again it’s also the babies decision that most people forget about . . . it’s just basic biology of life. I guess people would disagree with me about this, but I just mostly feel it’s just not appropriate enough to kill a baby just because of tragedies, but there could be better options . . . that could prevent abortion and such.”
Source: Google images
3 ENTERTAINMENT VOL. XXXX, ISSUE III
MAY 2019
Entertainment
The World is Disappointed on the Finale of GOT By Amy Contreras
The remarkable and beautiful series of Game of Thrones has finally came to an end with it’s last episode of the 8th season being aired on May 19, 2019. This show fulfilled many fans around the world a decade filled with excitement, anger, sadness, and happiness. However, many of the fans have come to a point where this was all gone to waste. The last 3 episodes of the 8th season were disappointing and upsetting to the fans due to the destruction of character development of Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow (a.k.a Aegon Targaryen) of whom the fans put all blame to the writers and producers of the show. It’s shocking to believe that politicians, in this case Senator Gillibrand of the United States, is part of the disappointed fan group as to where she expresses her thoughts on the final episode of GOT in a video produced by the progressive American media website, Now This. In this video, Senator Gillibrand expresses her thoughts on the character arc of Daenerys where Gillibrand asserts, “the writers used Daenerys’ history of her father being the mad king to be portrayed in this season which was unnecessary and cheap due to the years of seeing the great Khaleesi grant many slaves in Essos their freedom and how she has helped many from the low-income community to pursue great power.” Fans around the globe are also expressing their thoughts on the final episode of it being “cheap”, and “effortless”. The fans believe that the character arc of Jon Snow has also been gone to waste due to his true identity never ends up having any significance. The finale has definitely had remarkable moments such as the scene of Sansa Stark finally getting what she deserved, which is becoming the Queen of the North and having the North being granted as an independent Kingdom. Another remarkable moment is when Arya Stark sets off to sea in discovery of what is West of Westeros. No matter the downsides that this finale displayed, eventually the world is emotionally unstable due to this extraordinarily and powerful series coming to an end and with all its cast sharing their moments that occurred behind the scenes throughout filming. A certain fact is that the HBO Subscriptions will decrease in a rapid pace and the Sunday night conversations will be gone. Here’s a goodbye and thank you to the sensational series of Game of Thrones.
Image Source: Instagram Pokémon Detective Pikachu By: Melanie Otero The name Pikachu is very known in the Pokemon universe. To many it brings a sense of nostalgia. A recent film has brought the lovable Pikachu to life through the works of CGI and Animation. Pokemon and Pikachu fans were excited to view this new and upcoming film to theaters near them. The film was released on May 10, 2019 under the name: Pokémon Detective Pikachu. The overall premise of the film follows Ace detective, Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) and his encounter with a talking Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds). Pikachu himself is an acclaimed detective which helps Goodman solve an investigation: the mysterious disappearance of Tim Goodman’s missing father, Harry Goodman. Becky Diep described the film as: “So precious! I really enjoyed it. Pikachu was so cute and the plot overall was well structured even if it was classified as a “kid’s movie.” It was a really great film and I would like to watch it once more!” Overall, the reviews were positive with a 69% on RottenTomatoes and 7/10 on IMDb. It is speculated that this film will be receiving a sequel and many are quite excited for it’s release. If you have the time, destress with this adorable film!
Editorial Matter Opinions expressed in Vital Signs belong to the writer. They do not reflect the opinions of the Journalism staff or those of Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School.
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Cartoon created by Melanie Otero Background from official movie poster.
Vital Signs Staff Angelica Aguilar Amy Contreras Valerie Flores Shauna Freeman Marlen Gamas Jeanette Garcia Rebecca Garza Valentina Guevara Azucena Hilario Katherine Hurtado Alondra Lopez Angela Lopez Diana Lopez Kimberly Lopez Damian Marin
Kissel Martinez John McCullough Dante Merino Esmeralda Meza Melanie Otero Andrea Pineda Melinda Renteria Prescilla Rodriguez Amanda Rojas Edith Romero Anabella Ruiz Diego Toledo David Uribe Viviana Villafuerte Dariana Zuzuarregui