VOL.101.NO.142
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING:864-4358
TUESDAY, APRIL 28.1992
(USPS 650-640)
NEWS:864-4810
Voters sign petition for Perot
More than 100 volunteers show their support in Douglas County
By Jay Williams
Kansan staff writer
the nationwide movement to make Ross Perot the next President of the United States has reached Lawrence.
A steady stream of registered voters stopped at the petition location in the J.C. Penney parking lot adjoining 23rd Street as the occasional motorist honked in approval of the Texas billionaire who wants to become the first independent candidate to win a presidential election.
The Perot name became better known throughout the United States after he announced that he would run for president if supporters could place his name on all 50 state ballots in the Nov. 3 election.
Steve Plans, Douglas County coordinator for the Perot campaign. said
that about 2,000 Douglas County residents had signed petitions to place Peret's sname on the ballot.
He said more than 100 volunteers were taking the petitions around to various locations in Douglas County for signatures.
In Kansas, the Perot campaign needs 5,000 signatures to put Peron on the Nov. 3 ballot. Plans he hoped would include many signatures in Douglas County.
He said the campaign was collecting signatures by going door-to-door and setting up petition sites at locations where large numbers of people would pass, such as Massachusetts and a diverse community activities' buildings.
"We've had so many volunteers we'd been ready to utilize all of them," he said.
Robert Blehm, Overland Park
freshman, said he was driving down 23rd Street, saw the Perot signs and decided to sign the petition.
But Blehm is registered to vote in a different county, so he could not sign. Yet he still said he wanted to work with the Perot movement.
"I'm a Republican, but I don't like what Bush is doing." Blehm said. "And I don't want to vote for a Democrat."
He said he watched Peroton television and liked what he saw.
Plans admitted that the volunteers were not all strong supporters of Perot.
"First and foremost, people are upset with the way things are in Washington and want a change," he said.
Steve Archer, assistant director of the Douglas County Perot campaign, collected signatures at 23rd Street
yesterday.
"Perot for President" T-shirts and bumper stickers were being sold. Archer said the proceeds would help defray the Douglas County campaign costs.
"We started with nothing and no support from any national organization," he said. "The only support we received was from the few people who started this in Douglas County."
Archer said Perot volunteers made strong personal commitments to help put their candidate in the office, including out-of-pocket money
He said KU students were supporting Perot and coming to sign the petition.
"The support from the students has been incredible," Archer said. "Students seem to be informed and interested in Perot."
Tom Cole, St. Joseph, Mo., freshman, buys a bumper sticker from Ross Perot-campaigner Steve Archer and plans to advertise his support for the Independent presidential candidate.
Three Choices
Afraid and feeling alone, three KU students deal with unexpected pregnancy.
By Katherine Manweiler
Kansan staff writer
brightly colored pamphlets lie scattered on the sidewalk near an abortion clinic in Wichita. The slick papers scream political messages, as do anti-abortion and abortive rights.
rights activists who have gathered to face off.
Keep Abortion Legal. Abortion Kills Children.
As a Supreme Court decision draws closer on a Pennsylvania abortion case that could overturn the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, this intensely personal issue has been thrust once again into the national spotlight. Voices are rising and tensions are high.
In Kansas, Gov. Joan Finney signed abortion legislation Thursday that abortion-rights activists say is too restrictive and anti-abortion activists say is too lenient.
Lost among the angry voices and political conflict are women with unwanted pregnancies
Women who feel scared and alone. Women who are forced to choose. Women who must live with their decision forever. Women whose lives have been turned upside down.
Unwanted pregnancies often leave women in a maze of choices with no easy answers. Whether women keep their babies, place them up for adoption or get married, ideal ideologies are tested in the face of personal crisis.
This is the story of three KU students who faced the same unexpected news and arrived at three different
All of the women first thought pregnancy meant end of their worlds. None of their decisions came easterly.
Susan Wegler, Roeland Park senior, cherishes pictures of her 1-year-old son, who she placed up for adoption, and she said she keeps in touch with the adoptive parents.
"It was turmoil, and I had to put that aside and work on school," one of the women said. "Between that, it was just a really lonely period of going back to school in my mind, constantly trying to decide what to do."
an late July evening in 1990, Sarah was leaving a building on campus when a man grabbed her and raped her in the dark parking lot. Sarah never saw the man's face.
She said she filed a police report, but she refused to talk in detail about that night. Sarah is not her real name.
Sarah suspected that she had become pregnant when she missed her period in August. Yet she refused to admit, even to herself, the possible consequences of that traumatic night in July. Sarah put off seeing an obstetrician or beginning prenatal care until she was eight-months pregnant.
She kept her secret until March 1991.
"At times, I felt really alone," she said. "You have a secret, but you can't tell anybody. Ireally felt like I was all by myself."
The cold weather during the later months of her pregnancy allowed her to wear bulky sweaters and layered clothing, which concealed her pregnancy from family and friends.
Sarah considered having an abortion. But she felt the baby move in January for the first time and knew it was her last chance.
the pregnancy became increasingly difficult to hide, Sarah's fear and confusion about her options mounted. In March she called Birtright, a nurse who provides free pregnancy tests and counseling.
"The first time I ever started dealing with it was the first time that I felt the baby move," she said. "When you're pregnant to the point that you can feel there, there's a special place in your heart that fills."
The Birthright counselor encouraged Sarah to tell her parents. A few days later, she did.
Sarah almost decided to place the baby up for adoption, but her family convinced her that she would make a good mother and that they would support her in raising the baby.
"When you have something grow inside you for nine months, you can't give that up," she said. "I've never really been in love with anything or anybody else, and I'm growing inside of me. It's a different kind of love."
On April 9, 1991. Sarah was in labor at Lawrence
Memorial Hospital for 19 hours before she met her baby boy.
The first moment she saw him, Sarah named her son Nathan and told him she loved him.
"It was unbelievable," she said. "You're just meeting this person for the first time in your life, and he totally depends on you. It was such a great feeling. I loved him so much."
She had hoped so much for a son that she had not chosen any girls' names.
But her love for Nathan was clouded by reminders of the therapy.
"I had something against the baby," she said. "I didn't want him at first, but now I look back and I wouldn't change it. I used to never care about anyone but myself, and having him changed my whole world."
Sarah decided to leave KU in March this year. She said that because of the rape, she could no longer go.
Now, 24 years old and living with her parents in a small Kansas town, she is studying to get her stockbroker's license, and she is engaged to be married in July.
She wanted to go home.
She said that she planned to finish her history degree at another college after she got married and had another child.
Sarah said most women in her situation would not have chosen the path she did. But she now treasures what would be for many women a constant reminder of a violent attack.
"I'm very happy," she said. "I could never be happier. If I died tomorrow, my life would be fulfilled because I have my son."
After the first pregnancy test, she said that she resumed taking birth-control pills and drinking heavily on occasion. When she missed her period a pregnancy test confirmed what she had dreaded.
Kayleigh found three weeks ago that she was pregnant. Her first pregnancy test in February was neg
Ayleigh dreams of some day when she will get married and start a family with the man she loves.
Fearing that her baby had been damaged by the chemicals in her system, Kayleigh made an appoint-
"I'd never forgive myself for damaging this child for life because I no longer thought I was pregnant," said 20-year-old Kayleigh, who asked that her real name not be used. "I don't feel I've been a good mother already, and I would probably get worse given the situation — having no money, being too young, not being prepared, being too scared."
But the appointment did not settle the issue in her mind.
Thoughts of continuing the pregnancy and keeping her baby remained with her until the day of the baby's birth.
Continued on Page 8
Public employees strike in Germany
Transportation system is in chaos
The Associated Press
BERLIN — A rich society used to precision and order stood aghast yesterday as garbage piled up on the streets, mail delivery halted and transportation collapsed so dramatically that even bike paths were paralyzed.
Germany's public employees, demanding higher wages to cope with the costs of unification, opened what they said would be a week of unprecedented walkouts by idling buses, street cars and trains throughout the western portion of the nation.
"This is traffic chaos. The autobahns are full," said Berlin cabbie Udo Vojahn, 33, who was enjoying a booming business shuttling irate subway and bus riders to work. "I don't even have time to count my money."
Scattered strikes in other sectors hindered or halted mail delivery, garbage pickup, shipping traffic and air transportation.
The strikes were the biggest manifestation of the widespread resentment in west Germany over the costs of war, out their eastern German neighbors.
The public employees union is demanding a 9.5-percent pay increase to compensate for 4.7-percent inflation and a 2.1-percent last year to bail out the troubled east.
"We're sick of it, that every burden has to be carried on our backs," said Berlin city garage mechanic Uwe Nitzgen.
The strikes come at an inopportune time for Germany, which has seen its
dynamic economy hurt by the global recession and mounting bills from aiding east Germany and the former Soviet Union.
The state and federal governments said they could not afford the increases sought by their employees, and economists warned the wage pressures could worsen Germany's slowdown and increase inflation.
Inflation, a key ingredient in the social and economic maelstrom that led to Adolf Hitler's rise to power, is deeply feared in Germany.
About 75,000 employees took part in the strikes, said Public Service and Transportation Union board member Wolfgang Warburg. Some locals vowed to stay out until their demands were met, while others planned to return as early as today.
Striking transit workers were joined in some areas by sanitation and and
Postal workers in 30 locations have been on strike for three days, creating a huge backlog of undelivered mail. Postal union officials have vowed to expand their strike to telephone service.
Harbor workers stayed home in the huge port of Hamburg. Rail workers there blocked a depot for high-speed trains
The big cities of Cologne, Berlin and Frankfurt were paralyzed by traffic congestion.
"It took an hour and a half to drive two kilometers through town," said Berlin commuter Holger Hintze, 29. Two kilometers is about a mile.
Abortion-rights advocates, foes plan to get Kansas law changed
By Gayle Osterberg Kansan staff writer
Groups on both sides of the abortion issue already are planning strategies to change an abortion bill that Gov. Joan Finney signed into law last week.
The law, which takes effect July 1, will keep abortion legal in Kansas if Roe vs. Wade is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. But the law also enacts some restrictions, such as parental notification and an eight-hour waiting period.
Brenda Butler, president of KU's Pro-Choice Coalition, said the law was too restrictive.
But Tricia Trausch, president of KU Students for Life, said it did not go far enough.
Neither side is giving up and both think the next step is to help elect state candidates who are supportive of their views.
Butler said her organization would work this summer to support pro-choice state candidates.
"Those candidates would be pro women and women's rights," she said. "Whatever the law is, people will still protest. It is important to have people in the House and the Senate who are on our side."
Trausch said her group planned to spend the summer raising
money and posting fliers to support candidates who are against abortion.
"We can't let the slaughter that happens now continue any longer," she said. "We have to get legislators in there who will act accordingly."
Trausch said her ultimate goal was to get laws passed that would prohibit abortion.
Abortion-rights advocates could have one other avenue. Officials from the American Civil Liberties Union announced Friday that they would discuss the possibility of a federal lawsuit on behalf of a woman who thought that the law hindered her ability to get an abor-
Dick Kurtenbach, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri, said the ACLU told him that he was month about whether to file a suit.
He said officials would consider what parts of the law could be challenged and whether more than one would be considered in a single case.
The provisions that are of most concern to the ACLU are the parental consent and counseling requirements for minors and the eight-hour waiting period required for all women seeking abortions, he said.