I Almost Got Scammed

Assalamualaikum wbt.

       This story is based on my own experience and I pray everyday so that I will not experience the same thing and be more careful in the future. This happened on Saturday, 23^rd February 2019. I was in a very good mood on that day, I had a pleasant time in my Korean language lesson in the morning. Then, I ate superb delicious tempura at a new Halal restaurant in Yurakuchou. So, yeah basically everything went well on that day. I went home and I called my mom but she did not pick up her phone as she was busy playing with her cats. After I hang up the phone, I heard someone rang the bell of my house. In my house, there is a camera with 通話(read: tsuuwa, meaning telephone) that enable me to see and talk to the person outside without opening the door.

       So, usually if a stranger, someone that I don’t know, or someone that wearing NHK tag rang the bell, I will talk via the 通話 and told them that I’m busy or I just ignore them. On that day, it was cold outside. When that person rang the bell, I talked via the 通話 that I’m busy and hoping that he will leave immediately. However, it didn’t happen like that. He was persistently waiting outside of my house. Then, I looked at the camera again and I saw he was wearing a nametag written ‘NICHI GAS’. I thought maybe there is something urgent about my bill gas or he wanted to explain something about my gas condition. I opened the door, and that was my mistake.

       Using gas for cooking in Japan is not like in Malaysia. In Malaysia, we buy that ‘tong gas’ and connect with tube to the stove. Here in Japan, there is already a gas pipe that linked to the stove, so we just need to call the company that provide gas and pay monthly bill to them like other bills such as electric and water bills. As I live in Tokyo, I’m using service from Tokyo Gas company. So, that person outside introduced himself as a promoter from ‘NICHI GAS’ company. He asked me how much I paid my gas bill monthly in average. I told him in average I paid around 2000 yen per month. Then, he took out his phone and opened an app of his company.

       He showed me the calculation that if I used his company’s service, I will get 9% discount which is around 1820 yen per month in average. When he said that, I started to feel that I’m not interested to his offer because 9% discount is too little for me. There will be nothing change and so far, I don’t have any problem with my current gas company. Then, he opened his bag and he was looking for something. With a smiling face, he said he forgot to bring the pamphlet. I started feeling suspicious. In my opinion, if I work as a promoter, company’s pamphlet is necessary for me to explain and convince my customers. If I forgot to bring it in front of my customer, I won’t smile. I will feel panic, worry and apologize badly to my customer.

       But he didn’t look sorry when he told me that he forgot to bring the pamphlet. Instead, he asked me if I’m interested to sign a contract with him and he asked me to show my ID card. Then, I said no. I’m not interested. This is where my debate began with him.

Mr. N: Why not? You don’t want to pay the bill much cheaper monthly? Can you tell me the reason?

Me: I don’t have any problem so far with my gas company. I’m afraid if I change to a new one, it will be complicated. Plus, 2000 yen per month is affordable me, I don’t have problem to pay it.

Mr. N: It is not that complicated, if you want to cancel, you can just call our company. We will give 2000 yen discount in the first month if you use our company’s service.

Me: No, thank you. I’m not interested. I’m okay so far.

Mr. N: Can you tell me the reason why no?

Me: I don’t have reason. It’s that wrong if I don’t give the reason? Is there any rules saying that I’m wrong if I don’t give the reasons?

Mr. N: It is wrong. If there is no reason, you should use our company’s service and both of us will get benefit. I have explained so much things about this. It a good manner if you accept my offer.

Me: I’m sorry about my manner but I’m not interested. I’m so sorry.

       Then, I quickly closed the door. It was so scary for me and I was so shocked. This is my first experience and I just don’t like the way he talked about manner. I’m not a native Japanese and maybe I don’t understand much about Japanese manner, but I understand my right as a customer so well. When I shared my story with my other friends who live here, they said that they have experienced the same things. When it comes to crimes or scam, it can happen everywhere in this world. I pray that I will always be safe here and I hope that all of you be aware with your surroundings. May Allah protects all of us from any harm.

Legal Abortion

Assalamualaikum w.b.t.

       I’m quite hesitant to write about this topic as abortion is such a quite sensitive stuff to ladies. But as a lady, it is my right and my concern to expose this topic to public even though I’m neither a married lady nor a mother. The reason that triggered me to write about this was when I read a book entitled ‘Freakonomics’ written by Steven D. Levitt who is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and Stephen J. Dubner who was a former writer and editor at the New York Times Magazine. I haven’t finished reading this book yet but I’m already feel astonished on how this book changed my perspective towards economy and things that I thought have nothing to do with economy such as abortion.

Picture 1: Freakonomics

       Inside the Chapter 4 ‘Where Have All the Criminals Gone’, when the crime rate began falling in the early 1990s in United States, it surprised everyone and took some experts many years to recognize that crime was falling as they were so confident forecasting that crimes will continuing to rise. So, the effect of the crime-drop is the stronger economy. These experts started to investigate factors that linked to crime-drop explanation such as increased use of capital punishment, increased number of police, tougher gun laws etc. Until they investigated the last factor which is aging of the population. At first not many experts realized about this as they were only looking on the surfaces that related to crimes such as laws, police officers and policies.

       Criminologists like Wilson and James Alan Fox had badly misread the demographic data. The real population growth in the 1990s was in fact among the elderly. That is what makes this aging-of-the-population theory of crime reduction so appealing tidy since people mellow out as they get older, more older people must lead to less crime. So now, the decrease of crime rate leads to the stronger economy. The increase of older people leads to the decrease of crime rate. But what leads to increase of older people? Because if this continue, it will give bad effect to the economy and leads to lack of labor sources. The experts then started to look back to abortion history in that nation which started in 1828.

       Before I’m telling the whole story, start here will be quite boring. But yeah, boring knowledge is precious knowledge for me. So in 1828, New York became the first state to declare abortion illegal and by 1900, it had been made illegal throughout the country. However, this leads to uncontrol birth among poor women and there were a lot of unwanted babies. In the late 1960s, several states began to allow abortion under extreme circumstances such as rape, incest or danger to the mother. By 1970, five large states which are New York, California, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii had made abortion entirely legal and broadly available.

       On 22^nd January 1973, legalized abortion was suddenly extended to the entire country with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court gave voice that when a woman does not want to have a child, she usually has good reasons like bad marriage or too poor to raise a child. In the first year after Roe v. Wade, some 750,000 women had abortions in the United States. By 1980, the number of abortions reached 1.6million where it leveled off. Which means 1.6 million American women a year who got pregnant were suddenly not having those babies. Plus, any woman could easily obtain an abortion often for less than $100.

Picture 2: Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe) and her lawyer Gloria Allred on the steps of the Supreme Court, 1989

       Usually woman who was unmarried or in her teens or poor, and sometimes all three was the one that take advantage of Roe v. Wade. One study has shown that if these aborted babies were born, they were most likely to live in poverty or grow up with just single-parent household. These are one of the powerful factors leading these kids to criminality. Legalized abortion led to less unwantedness, unwantedness leads to high crime, legalized abortion, therefore, led to less crime. This kind of theory provokes a variety of reactions. Is the theory true? There are plenty of people who consider abortion itself to be a violent crime.

       In 22^nd January 2019, exactly 46 years after Roe decision on legal abortion, New York state has enacted strong new legal protections for abortion rights including a provision permitting late-term abortions when a woman’s health is endangered. This new law also authorizes midwives and physician assistants to perform some abortions. Some critics argued that it could be harder for prosecutors to bring charges when a woman is assaulted and loses her pregnancy. Some opponents also predicted that this will lead to more late-term abortions as abortions usually take place in the first trimester that equals to 3 months pregnancy.

       However, Republican Florida state Rep. Mike Hill aiming to file the bill to ban abortion if a fetal heartbeat is detected. He said this ban is to save lives, to save the babies. If any person who provides an abortion after a heartbeat is detected commits a third-degree felony (five years in prison, five years probation and a $5000 fine). An abortion can be provided if a woman has been diagnosed with a condition that would create a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function if the woman delayed terminating her pregnancy. The bill also replacing the word “fetus” from current abortion-related laws with “unborn human being”.

       When I’m reading the news, I’ve just realized that these laws are made by human to another human that makes killing the unborn human is legal. Even though the theory in 1990s that legal abortion makes crime rates drop, we can’t foresee those unborn babies’ future that if they were born, they will become criminals. If you said legal abortion is needed to avoid the babies to live in poverty, then the adults should prepare and built well environment before you make your babies. In this legal abortion laws, we have treated this unborn human being as an object that can be thrown away when you don’t want it. We are the real criminals here.

       How about abortion law in Malaysia? Malaysian Penal Code (a law that codifies most criminal offences and procedures in Malaysia) sections 312-315 covers abortion which made abortion totally illegal until in 1989, under pressure from the medical fraternity, another amendment was made to allow an exception which are if it involves a risk to the life of the pregnant woman, injury to the mental or physical health of the pregnant woman or it is carried out by a registered medical practitioner. Before the amendments came into force, the only grounds for abortion were to save the life of the woman and to preserve her physical and mental health. As a Muslim majority country, in 2002, the National Fatwa Committee issued a fatwa which permits abortion up to 120 days of gestation in cases where the woman’s life is at risk.

       In October 2014, Nirmala Thapa, who was 6 weeks pregnant was arrested in Bukit Mertajam for undergoing an abortion. Nirmala was the first woman to be found guilty for an illegal abortion since 1989. After about a year, she was finally acquitted in September 2015. This case courted controversy as some people thought that Nirmala was unfairly targeted as she was an immigrant and there are so many people still have misconception regarding the legal status of abortions in this country. If we look back from 1974, a national fertility and family survey found that 71% of women endorsed abortion on the grounds of rape or incest, 54.3% endorsed abortion for unmarried women, 52.2% endorsed abortion for health reasons and 34.5% endorsed abortion for economic and social reasons.

       Reading articles about safe abortions and woman’s right to decide whether they want to keep the baby alive or not just made me think that are we, Malaysia is going to be like United States right now? I am not against abortions if it is necessary and for the sake of woman’s life. But if the baby is aborted just because that woman is still single or living in poverty, abortion is not a way to solve the problems. Perhaps, we might can consider if the woman who was the rape victim wants to abort the baby but for Muslims, advices and fatwa from the National Fatwa Committee are absolutely necessary for this.

       I am not a person that have right to say abortion is good or not. I just really want this abortion laws and policies in Malaysia are discussed and not become a taboo subject because this is about the future of next generation and potential babies that can bring good future for the country. 

Sources:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-mike-hill-house-bill-235-abortion-ban-fetal-heartbeat/?fbclid=IwAR1dGjk0P8HvGE5XmsTRw2tQmq_xRqkwEgbPASN6mjhA-8iDumSqTW2QfUg&ftag=CNM-00-10aab6a&linkId=62651797

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-passes-abortion-bill-late-term-if-mothers-health-is-at-risk-today-2019-01-23/?fbclid=IwAR0a8tP7RiuEkkjxdc9CjHiYHwE9EAk4EuPOnaZS6eoJiqIdOYtOhurmeYE&ftag=CNM-00-10aab6a&linkId=62756228