Opinion
Kansan
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Lindsey Henry, Editor Marc Harrell, Business manager Dave Morantz, Managing editor Colleen Eager, Retail sales manager Kristie Biasi, Managing editor Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
4A
Wednesday, Jan. 21, 1998
THE SPOKESMAN REVIEW
Editorial
Roe vs. Wade and abortion debate requires open minds, tolerance
Abortion is a volatile issue, causing intense debate and dividing our consciences. Such issues have always been debated and open dialogue should continue if we are ever to reach any agreement of what is morally acceptable.
In a country where free speech is practiced, our universities should provide a forum for debate. Students are opinionated and vehement in supporting their opinions. Whether an abortion-rights advocate or anti-abortion, we seek to solve a moral dilemma. We also ask tough questions such as what human life is.
Amid our discourse on abortion, we must be careful not to become morally aloof and out of touch with reality. No one can interject a single moral code that everyone will uphold. Emphatic
The freedom to speak carries with it the responsibility to listen to others' ideas too.
assertions in favor or against abortion should be carefully thought-out and all circumstances should be taken into consideration.
Fred Phelps and other moral bigots only promote ignorance and misunderstanding. They fuel the flames of prejudice and hatred. When people like Phelps engage in moral mud-slinging, the debate becomes tainted to the point that right cannot be extricated from wrong.
While Roe vs. Wade made the abortion law clear, it did not settle the abortion
controversy. Government cannot legislate morality.
As the 25th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade on Jan. 22 approaches, we reflect on the controversial subject matter of the case. But we should also reflect on the freedom (and thus responsibility) with which we debate sensitive ideas.
Right or wrong, the moral question that abortion poses will not be solved easily or completely. However, discourse is the only way to narrow the vast rift between two sides. An old Native American proverb says, "Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf."
We must respect and listen to each other in order to overcome the divisive nature of the issues that separate us. If we cannot—or will not—then we lessen the very freedom to speak about them.
Nick Zaller for the editorial board
Saferide deserves to be bailed out
Last year 18,801 people used Saferide. Some were intoxicated drivers who could have killed themselves or someone else, contributing to the $460 million cost of alcohol-related traffic deaths and injuries in Kansas each year. Others may have been students on their way home from the library late at night who could have met trouble along the way. This life-saving service is in trouble of being terminated and deserves to be saved.
There isn't enough money to see the program through the year. It's short by $30,000. We hope that the money needed to keep the program running will be be taken from Senate's reserve account. This short-term solution is unquestionably needed, but a long-term plan must be found.
Senate's successful program is used by students to save them from others,themselves
This isn't just a service for drunks. In fact, according to a 1993 compilation of data for the Senate Saferide Proposal, only 25 percent of the calls originated from bars. That's still 4,700 passengers.
Both the KU police and the Lawrence Police Department support the program. Managers of Saferide are hoping it will qualify as a preventive measure so that it could acquire state funds reserved for alcohol awareness.
semester. This obviously is not a realistic option — students at the University need the program.
Cut Saferide for the rest of the
- Reduce the hours of Saferide. It runs from 11 pm to 3 am every night at a cost of $27 per hour. Taking off even a half an hour or 15 minutes from each end of the schedule would reduce costs by $400 a month. This rescheduling could help keep Saferide running.
Take $30,000 from the Student Senate reserve account. There is currently more than $250,000 in the reserve account. It seems that Saferide could function with a little help from Senate.
Student Senate should do everything in its power to save Saferide. Otherwise we will lose a program that likely has saved lives in the past and could save lives in the future.
Kansan staff
Paul Eakins . *Editorial*
Andy Obermueller . *Editorial*
Andrea Albright . *News*
Jodie Chester . *News*
Julie King . *News*
Charity Jeffries . *Online*
Eric Weslander . *Sports*
Harley Ratliff . *Associate sports*
Ryan Koener . *Campus*
Mike Perryman . *Campus*
Bryan Volk . *Features*
Tim Harrington . *Associate features*
Steve Puppe . *Photo*
Angle Kuhn . *Design, graphics*
Mitch Lucas . *Illustrations*
Corrie Moore . *Wire*
Gwen Olson . *Special sections*
Lachelle Roades . *News clerk*
Cara Skodack for the editorial board
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"I'm not one of those complicated, mixed-up cats. I'm not looking for the secret to life or the answer to life. I just go from day to day, taking what comes."
How to submit letters and guest columns
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
-Frank Sinatra, The Chairman of the Board
Guest columns: Should be double-
spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stuiffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Paul Eakins (eakins@kansan.com) or Andy Obermuelmer (andyo@kansan.com) at 864-4810. If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the staff point (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4810.
Snow fights remind us that we can get along
This is not a unified campus, to say the least. And, rightly so.
Perspective
When you bring together 25,108 people of diverse backgrounds, religions, hues and
One thing that certainly unites us is basketball.
views, what brings us together is going to be more rare than what separates us. However, sometimes we manage to get away from the issues that divide us.
One thing that certainly writes us into shells.
Thousands of students stand behind 12 students with the goal of victory. And if Jayhawk basketball games are one of the top unifying factors, then surely another past time — arguing about basketball — unites us as well.
Sam Pierron
opinion@kansan.com
For freshmen, there may be no stronger unifier than shared experiences of nonsensical ENGL 101regulations and MATH 104 graduate teaching assistants who speak four languages, none of them English.
At the end of last semester, though, I discovered the greatest unifier: the first snow.
As the snow fell, people started to come outside and revel in the wondrous beauty of snow glistening in the streetlights, watching flakes make their way to the ground.
It's funny what you'll see people doing on the night of the first snow: making angels, running around like kids, kissing like sixth-graders behind the swings and sledding on dinner trays like college students have since the dawn of time, or at least since the dawn of hard plastic dinner trays.
Of course, all of these things are secondary to snowball fights.
On east Campus, a horde went from building to building, starting at the school halls and working its way down to the greek houses around them, gathering people as it went. About 200 Greeks and school hall residents all with the aim of getting one another wet. It was a beautiful sight.
Apparently, a grander melee took place on Daisy Hill, with a reported 900 people indulging in the simple pleasure of snowball warfare.
Getting 900 people on Daisy Hill to do anything other than eat at Mrs. E's is such a remarkable feat in itself that even the most hardened onlookers must have surely broken down in tears of joy.
Maybe that's what makes the first snow such a great unifier.
After nine months, we forget just how beautiful snow is. Instead of carrying on about the merits and demerits of campus issues, we sit back and let Mother Nature work her artistic wonders.
When the first snow comes, the world becomes a new place again, full of wonderment and awe. That's why we act like children on that night, a night which comes every late November or early December. Snow is new again, so different from the daily routine of classes and kegers. Snow is pure, clean and shining, free of complications. Childhood, unlike our lives now, is simple and uncomplicated, free of the burdens of adulthood. Snow reminds us of times past.
Tomorrow, the snow will either melt or stay as an icy nuisance.
Either way, it will become just another thing to complain about. Who likes dirty slush on their car? For that matter, who likes driving up one of Lawrence's many hills without any sort of traction? Like everything else, it becomes a complication.
For now, though — for tonight — we can forget about complications.
Heck, somebody slid into my car and dented it last night while it was parked on 14th Street thanks to our rediscovered friend. I didn't have the energy to be angry. The thought didn't even cross my mind. I took one look around, filled out the police report, and was on my way without so much as a frown. Who could be angry? The first snow was here.
Sam Pierron is an Oatle junior in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Legislation before Student Senate
Sponsor: Tom Preheim, Treasurer
A Bill to Fund Saferide
Bill calls for a $30,000 allocation from the Senate Reserve Account to continue running Saferide.
A Bill to Fund the KU Lecture Series Speaker Al Franken
Bill calls for a $9,000 allocation from the Unallocated Account for the Lecture Series.
Sponsor: Larry Gibbs, LA&S Senator
A Resolution Concerning Polling Sites
Sponsor: Seth Hoffman, ASHC Senator
A Bill to Fund the "Unity in the Community - Jayhawk Stomp"
A Resolution to Support a University Policy Protecting Student Ethical Choice in the Dissection of Animals in Education Sponsor: Kevin Yoder, IFC Senator
Sponsor: Mike Walden, Student Body Vice President
A Resolution Supporting Improvements to Robinson Center
From Student Rights Committee
From Finance Committee
A Resolution Charging the Recreation Services Advisory Board with Examining the Feasibility of Construction Near Robinson Center
From Student Rights
Genuine reproductive freedom means that women and
A Bill to Add Corbin/GSP and Oliver Hall Polling Sites
Old Business
Brad Finkeldei, Elections Commission
Todd Moore, Big Brothers and Bie Sisters
Open Forum:
The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Big 12 Room of the Kansas Union. The Student Executive $\varphi$ Committee will meet at 5:15 p.m. in the Governor's Room. All legislation is posted in the Student Senate office, 410 Kansas Union.
Ron Thornburgh, Secretary of State Shari Sokol & Misti Spann, "One University" Task Force
Feedback
The consideration of the Daisy Hill Polling Site Bill.
On Jan. 22, this nation will commemorate an historic landmark that changed the lives of American women. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, perhaps more than any other case, made it possible for women to fully participate in American life. By recognizing a woman's right to legal abortion, Roe allowed women, not the government, to decide when the time was right, and when it was not, to become a parent.
Reproductive freedom questioned despite Roe vs. Wade
Most KU students were born after the Roe decision was handed down, so we may think that the right to choose is protected. We may think that we are immune to what our mothers and grandmothers suffered in the days when abortions could only be sought in shadowy back alleys and in other countries. Yet, 25 years later, the promise of Roe is unfulfilled.
Women do not have the same level of protection the court recognized in 1973. The Supreme Court's decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey diminished protections for women by permitting states to impose restrictions that would have been unconstitutional under Roe.
Sarah Deer
Regan Cowan Scottsdale, Ariz., senior
Sarah Page Prairie Village senior
Stacey Mann Lawrence senior
Jennifer Curry
Lenexa sophomore
Sally Puleo St. Charles, Ill. sophomore
As we approach the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must wake ourselves and our fellow students to the broader truth that reproductive freedom cannot be obtained without the ability to exercise that choice without violence, indignities, or interference.
men have the means to make informed, responsible decisions about sexuality, contraception, pregnancy, childbearing and abortion. Congress and the nation must adopt a coherent national reproductive health policy that would help reduce the need for abortion. As we continue through college and beyond, we must have a voice in advancing this policy; thus, realizing the promise of Roe v. Wade.
While $24,000 may seem like the going rate for "good speakers" for a university. I just thought that some of you might like to know that there are other good people out there. If you do the math, we could potentially bring 10 speakers from Speak Out to KU for the cost of Al Franken. Speak Out is the country's only not-for-profit national speakers and artists agency. They work with 200 progressive speakers and artists. See our web site for information. Some of the speakers who are available are Noam Chomsky, Jim Hightower and Jesse Jackson.
Speakers fee could be better spent to serve students
Costs range from $500 to $1000 per engagement plus travel, lodging and meals.
It makes you think what $24,000 could really do for the student body. And $24,000 is more than a living wage for a year in the United States.
Paying $24,000 to bring Al Franken (who is first and foremost a comedian) to the university for one night instead of paying about $2,000 for someone whose life is dedicated to their message just doesn't make sense.
Matt Bachand Yorktown, Va., senior and Student Senator