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KANSAN.COM | MONDAY, FEB. 8, 2016
**looks both ways
halfway through
crossing the street**
Why isn't the day after the Super Bowl a national holiday yet? Thanks Obama
Why isn't the Puppy Bowl a national holiday
Love Yourself by Justin Bieber is actually a really good song
Whom is just the formal version of the word "who" Right?
Kevin Durant is a better basketball player than Steph Curry and I'm not sorry about it
Michael Jackson > Kesha IMO
There are some times when I wish we weren't a Coke campus...and then I drink a Vanilla Coke and it all makes sense again.
Why did you pull out in front of me just to drive slow?
Does it bother anyone else that Watson only has one way in and out?
My 1st sunflower showdown and im a senior!
I had an iced honey bun for the first time in 5 years. It tasted like disappointment.
Price is Right is an underrated show
I'm too upset by Donald Trump's supposed Nobel Peace Prize nomination to make witty banter about it.
Do you the university would allow me to have a cat as a service dog?
My math professor talks about quadratic equations like a motivational speaker talks about striving for your best self. Exciting
beyoncSLAY
I'll pay someone in discounted Valentine's Day candy to write my creative writing story for me.
I bet this song will be in your head for the rest of the day: Drake + lyrics "you used to."
"Tasty" videos on Facebook are going to turn us into the society of obese people from Wall-E
One time a waitress asked my cousin if he wanted soup or salad and he said "yeah I'll have a super salad"
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PLANNED PARENTHOOD?
Cutting
Gonzales: Greater access to birth control benefits everyone, not just women
ILLUSTRATION BY JAKE KAUFMANN/Kansan
► RACHEL GONZALES
@Rachellnoel
Access to birth control is a right that all women should share.
regardless of their income. A study by the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that Texas legislation to defund Planned Parenthood directly lead to an increase in unplanned births by low-income women who had previously received birth control at clinics that no longer received state funding in Texas, beginning in 2011.
The state of Kansas is moving quickly in the same direction as Texas when it comes to reproductive legislation. If Kansas continues to cut funding for
programs such as Planned Parenthood, it would have a negative impact on the well-being of America. The cost of unintended pregnancy is one that is paid by society as a whole, not just the women who give birth to unplanned babies. According to a committee opinion published by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, unintended pregnancies cost the government money. In 2008, that cost was approximately $12.5 billion. Each public dollar spent to fund affordable birth control will save the U.S health care system almost $6 dollars in the long run. Funding affordable birth control will ultimately improve health care and abortion rates in America. As the American College
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists puts it, "the most effective way to reduce abortion rates is to prevent unintended pregnancy by improving access to consistent, effective and affordable contraception." Providing access to birth control at an affordable cost for all women is a crucial step to preventing unintended pregnancy. A study done by US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health found that unintended pregnancy and abortion rates are higher in the U.S. than in most other developed countries, and low-income women have disproportionately-high rates.
Women must have access to birth control to reduce the amount of unplanned pregnancies, and their access should not be based on where they live or how much money they have. Planned Parenthood has a long history of fighting for its place in Kansas. Since 2010, legislators began to make cuts to the organization's office for women in Kansas and Missouri, according to Planned Parenthood.
Initially, Planned Parenthood was prohibited from offering educational materials in public schools in both states. Since then, abortion restrictions have significantly increased, with the government of Kansas stripping the organization of public funding and passing Senate Bill 95 which restricted the safest method of second-trimester abortions.
So far, the organization has fought to preserve its
commitment to reproductive freedom in the Kansas community. Further cuts to the program would mean an increase in births among women who could no longer afford birth control, just like in Texas.
Kansas should support Planned Parenthood with public funding. The task is up to the government, in large part, to provide disadvantaged women with access to birth control. Providing easy access to birth control is the right thing to do for the health of individual women and the health of the nation as a whole.
Rachel Gonzales is a junior from Fort Collins, CO., studying Strategic Communications.
- Edited by Deanna Ambrose
Clough: Facebook's "Friends Day" and how social media defines relationships
▶ MATTHEW CLOUGH @mcloughsofly
If you logged into Facebook last Thursday, you were greeted with a cute little video dedicated to you and your friends. You probably watched it. If you could get past the nature of the arbitrarily manufactured holiday "Friends Day," you probably enjoyed it. Maybe you even shared it with all your friends.
But maybe you couldn't get past the sheer artificiality of Facebook's stint to celebrate its own invention 12 years ago. Sure, the video was a nice gesture, and maybe you enjoyed the chance, however brief, to reflect on your friendships through the years. But as the day wore on and every other post appearing on your timeline was someone else's Friends Day video,
Annoyance is not an unusual response. It's easy to feel badgered by the extreme oversaturation of content the social media giant seems to be shoving at its users. Having to sift through so many nearly identical videos makes it difficult to find any content with any sort of significance, be it news material or actually interesting posts from friends.
Not to mention, most people aren't even going to take the time to watch their friends' Friends Day videos. If you've been out-of-touch with someone for a while, the chances you engage with anything they post are pretty low, let alone a minute-long video. It's really just a lot of wasted cyber-space.
maybe you couldn't help feeling a bit irked.
And it's not like people
aren't capable of revisiting memories they share with their close friends individually. That's really what Facebook is for - no one knows whose photos and posts you want to see more than you. That's why when the social media megalith got involved, many users were upset when they found exes, forgotten friends or even deceased pets in their personalized videos.
So why fill up the Internet with templated videos constructed through algorithms? Wouldn't it be better to celebrate "Friends Day" by making a conscious effort to see the friends you actually want to see? Facebook's effort to bring people together through memories comes off as lazy when you notice each person's video is just a regurgitated reflection of everyone else's.
It's not that I'm anti-Facebook or anti-social media - such tools can undoubtedly be valuable mechanisms for staying in touch with friends and family. What I am against is the increasingly prevalent algorithmization of the human experience. Humans are complex beings with minds of their own. No computerized system can understand our relationships more than we can ourselves.
Friends Day videos are just another component in Facebook's process of trying to move beyond the two-dimensional realm of the website. Its recently implemented "On This Day" feature shows users their posts from previous years when they log in, often quipping "we care about you and the memories you share." The sentiment isn't kind or touching. It comes off as creepy and oddly
forceful - in the friendliest way possible, of course.
Celebrating friendship is great, and recognizing those relationships that have influenced your life positively is a rewarding experience. But it's one that's uniquely human. Facebook, or any other social media entity, has no business getting involved in such matters. While seemingly sweet on the surface, Friends Day videos and other similar features essentially reduce human relationships to the confines of an unfeeling algorithm. It's a process that's largely superficial and completely unnecessary.
Matthew Clough is a junior from Wichita studying English and journalism.
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