University Daily Kansan, February 18, 1983
Page 9
Teen birth-control rule hurts privacy, some say
By SARA KEMPIN Staff Reporter
A U.S. District Court judge's decision Monday to temporarily prohibit the government from requiring clinics to tell parents when their teenage daughters get birth control pills or devices mixed feelings from area residents.
The rule, which was to affect those 17 if the youngest had been scheduled to take the lead.
George Lear, director of community relations for Planned Parenthood of western Missouri and Kansas, said he did not think the New York injunction, which enjoined the Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing the rule, would be overturned.
"Technically the ruling does not set a precedent," he said. "But practically,
PRESIDENT REAGAN's admini-
nship has imposed its
military over other people.
Maureen McGuinness, director of nurses and a family planning practitioner for the Douglas County Health Department, said she thought that a ruling on the issue would be tied up in the courts for a long time.
The health department does receive some federal money, she said, so if the injunction is overturned, it would have to be taken away from teenage girls request contraceptives.
The health department issues contagious upon request for a minimal dose.
Many teens would stop trying to get birth control devices and teen pregnancies would increase if the government he is not blocked permanently, she said.
CAROLYN EDGECOMB, a nurse in the office of Placek, Hermes and Wilcox, obstetricians and gynecologists, said she thought a young girl has the right to use birth control without her parents' knowledge.
If a young girl chooses to be sexually active and to use birth control without her parents' knowledge, she should have
the right to privacy, Edgecomb said.
"We are seeing younger and younger girls in our office who are sexually active."
If the girls had been counseled better about birth control, they might not have gotten pregnant, she said.
Nancy Keel, 1906 Barker Ave., said and her husband objected to the decision.
"We should be able to counsel them privately if they want us to," she said.
SHE SAID THE couple had been trained at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., in the ovulation method of natural family planning.
Once a month, the couple recruit newly engaged or married couples from Catholic churches in the area to participate in a class that teaches them to know at what time of the month they are most fertile, she said.
She said she and her husband, William Keel, had been appointed to the Archdiocesan Board of Natural Family Planning and would start teaching classes in Johnson County in a couple of months.
"I believe, in the last 20 years, there have been a lot more abortions and pregnancies than ever before," she said.
The pill is not foolproof, she said. The only form of birth control that is safe is a pill.
"We need to start teaching young girls how to say 'no.'" she said.
WILLIAM KEEL, assistant professor of German, said he thought that if birth control' medication was given to a minor, it was unconscionable for parents not to know what their child was doing.
There is a conflict between the girl's right to privacy and the parents' desire to protect her.
"But no doctor should be giving a girl aged 17 and under birth control pills," he said. "It just isolates her more and more from her parents."
If young people want to be sexually active, they have to be willing to accept it.
When a young person is not ready to accept the consequences, the youth has to make a choice, he said, and the choice must be not to have sex.
Man accused of killings evades police manhunt
By United Press International
ASHLEY, N.D. — Law officers convoiced yesterday to a bastion of anti-federalism but hit another dead end in the manhunt for elusive tax protester Gordon Kahl, accused in the machine-gun slayings of two U.S. marshals.
Armed with rifles and handguns, officers partially sealed off the town of Ashley and its 1,200 residents and searched homes belonging to three right-wing sympathizers in search for the 63-year-old man.
The convoy of 16 cars and a mobile command post left the search command center in Jamestown at dawn for the 80-mile trip to Ashley near the South Dakota border — about 60 miles south of Medina where the marshals were shot Sunday.
RICHARD BLAY, agent in charge of the Minneapolis FBI office, confirmed that officers had encountered a dead end after a search of several hours.
Only the locals were allowed in and out of town during the search.
“As far as I know he’s not in town, he’s going back to Jamestown,” said Blay. But did not elaborate on whether he was a civilian or an officer, who thought he might be in Asley.
"Monkey Business" is opposed to such government creations as the Internal Revenue Service, the federal reserve system and the United Nations. It is against bankers, bankers, lawyers and Jews, and in favor of public hangings for criminals.
Officers searched the homes of Mike Phillips, a self-proclaimed nonlicensed attorney and tax protester, veterinarian James Coleman and Len Martin, who publishes the radical newsletter "Monkey Business."
Officials said that earlier in the day Kahl had sent a hand-written letter to attorney Irv Nodland in Bismarck. In it, he claimed complete responsibility for the gunfight and dings of marshals from the 32nd and 52nd battles. Marshal Robert Cheshire, 32, who tried to arrest Kahl for violation of his probation for tax evasion.
Residents express fears about homesite
By NED STAFFORD Staff Reporter
Several residents near a proposed site for a group home for the mentally handicapped said Wednesday that they feared their proper care was being disrupted and was built
COTTONWOOD INCORPORATED,
a local agency that serves the
mentally handicapped, wants
to operate the homes. Cottonwood now operates six group homes throughout the city for the mentally handicapped.
The Lawrence City Commission Tuesday night deferred until next week consideration of a special permit to allow the home and three similar ones around the city to be built.
"We're not completely bad," said Rita Parrish, one of the area residents. "But we don't want it stuffed down our throats."
Besides a possible decline in property values, Parrish said she would fear for the safety of children in the
Parrish, 527 Boulder St., lives behind the proposed group home at 3701 Overland Drive.
neighborhood if the group home were built
"I think it is the case that people don't understand the people we're serving," he said. "If they did understand, they wouldn't fear it."
But Howard Hasler, director of Cottonwood, said that residents' fears were unfounded.
HE SAID THAT children in the area would stand no more chance of being harmed by clients of the group home than by anybody else in the city.
He said that his agency served primarily the mentally retarded and that residents of the group care homes were employed when they were in the homes.
Rutherford Turbell, chairman of the KU department of special education, also said the residents' fears were unfounded. He said people had no more reason to fear mentally incapacitated people than other people.
Rutherford said of those who opposed the home, "They're not mean, they're just ignorant about mental retardation."
Parrish said Cottonwood did not
"It's just like they are trying to slip it in without us knowing," she said.
HOWEVER, HASLER said he had not met with neighborhood residents because he had received only one phone call about the group home on Overland Drive. The other group have not generated any opposition.
come to the area to inform residents of the plan.
Parrish said she had talked to the city commissioners about her concerns, but she did not think they cared about what residents had to say.
"They would look at it differently if it was the property next door," she said.
Connie Maple, 519 Boulder St. also lives behind the proposed home on Overland Drive. The neighborhood is a residential neighborhood, she said.
"They'd just be plopping this right down in the middle of the neighborhood," she said.
She said she opposed the home because of a possible decline in property values and the possibility of increased traffic.
"It doesn't sound good to say we object to mentally handicapped people in the neighborhood, but I'm a parent and have four small children," she said. "I don't know how closely the people would be supervised."
BURGLARS STOLE a shotgun, worth an estimated $157, from a Lawrence resident's home in the 400 block of 3rd Street. Police said, Police have no suspect.
City Commissioner Nancy Shontz said the fears about the mentally handicapped were understandable but had no basis.
"We should think of them as individuals," she said. "In the so-called normal population there are adults with violent and children who are cruel."
SHE SAID COTTONWOOD was careful in choosing clients that were not aggressive and did not have personality problems.
Price Banks, director of the city-county planning office, said Cottonwood would have to follow a site plan performance agreement, which would require that only Cottonwood operate the home.
Judge bans 'squeal' rule nationwide
By United Press International
He said that studies by people involved in group care home projects had shown that property values did not increase in properties in which a group home was built.
A ROBBER, armed with a knife, stole about $25 from a cab belonging to the Yellow Cab Company at Sixth and Michigan streets Wednesday night, police said. The robber cut the driver slightly, police said, but the driver was not hospitalized. Police have no suspects in the crime.
NEW YORK — A federal judge yesterday said his decision to block a new rule requiring federally funded clinics to notify parents when their daughters get birth control devices applied nationwide.
District Judge Henry Werker told the Department of Health and Human Services to notify all its regional offices in connection with the application of the rule pending a trial.
Werker took his action after a brief hearing at U.S. District Court in New York to clarify the extent of the ruling he had issued Monday.
The judge said that Congress had provided funds to combat the problem of teenage pregnancy, and the new regulation would undermine that goal.
THE DISPLEE involves a controversial Reagan administration regulation — labeled a "squeal rule" by its foes — that health clinics that get federal family planning money must notify parents in writing within 10 days when women 17 or younger receive medication, intrauterine devices or diaphragms.
In his decision, Werker said the regulation, which had been scheduled to take effect Feb. 25, was "invalid" and violated the sanctities and salvers the will of Congress."
On the record
Divided commission endorses change in open meetings law
By NED STAFFORD
Staff Reporter
A Kansas House committee will discuss a bill next week that would, in effect, allow two Lawrence city committees to discuss city policy in private.
The commission voted 4-1 at its last meeting to endorse the bill.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. David Heinemann, R-Garden City, would change the wording of the Kansas Open Meetings Law.
The law now states that a majority of a quorum of a public body cannot meet to discuss public business in private. The courts have also used the words "a majority of" from the law.
THE QUORUM FOR THE Lawrence City Commission is three, so a majority of the quorum, or two commissioners, are in private to discuss city business.
would like to see something done to help small commissions.
Commissioner Nancy Shontz said she
"We have no idea where the other commissioners are coming from," she
She said, however, that she would rather see the commission raise its quorum to four, which would allow two commissioners to discuss city business in private interviews and also prevent three agents from being involved in the absence of the other two.
Commissioner Don Binnis said that he did not want to see any changes made to the policy.
"What's to prevent two commissioners from talking with each other one day and then one of those with another the next," Binns said.
NEIL WOERMAN, special assistant to the attorney general, said that he had heard all the arguments for amending the open meetings law.
'What they all boil down to is subversion of the open meetings law
State Rep. Ardena Matlock, D-Clearwater, said she favored keeping the law intact. Matlock is ranking minority member on the Federal and State Affairs Committee, which will discuss the bill next week.
SHE SAID THAT she thought publicly elected officials should conduct business in the open.
Stephan ruled last month that a public body could raise its quorum to more than a simple majority and thus circumvent the open meetings law.
State Rep. Betty Jo Charlton, D-Dawrence, said that she thought the bill would be good, but that she would probably support the bill if it reaches the House floor.
LEASE
He said that Attorney General Robert Stephan had suggested that a quorum should be defined in the open meetings law as a simple majority.
and a step backward into secretive government," he said.
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