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Kansan
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Thursday, September 24,1998
SUMMER THE ORLANDO ENTINEL
01988
Editorials
Anti-abortion activists have right to exercise free speech, expression
This week, the University of Kansas has found itself in the eye of a particularly nasty storm. The KU Christian Legal Society and Jayhawker Campus Ministry invited an anti-abortion group to set up an exhibit that graphically displays the results of abortions. The display, called the Genocide Awareness Project, also shows shocking photos of the victims of Nazi death camps and African Americans who were lynched in this country by racist mobs.
The University community should embrace the issue of free speech at any cost, but the organizations capitalizing on the issue of free speech also should exhibit their beliefs in a more tasteful manner — such as not placing the exhibit by a dining hall.
Activists should have employed other methods to provoke discussion.
Like other abortion protests around the nation, this one has already been marred by violence. On Sunday night, one student was arrested for driving his vehicle into one of the signs, a group of students overturned one of the signs and another student punched one of the anti-abortion protesters.
Although this sort of conduct is illegal and counterproductive, it is not surprising. The first place that students saw the exhibit was on Daisy Hill, near the dining hall. At least one student became physically ill after exiting the
dining hall and seeing the display.
The University should be commended for allowing the displays on campus. Chancellor Hemenway has made it clear that he will go beyond paying lip service to freedom of expression and inquiry at KU. The First Amendment is alive and well here.
However, there were certainly better places to start this exhibit. The stated purpose of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, which produced the displays, is to get people talking and thinking about abortion. It's hard for people to talk when they're sick to their stomachs. It's also difficult for them to think objectively about a message when they're enraged at the messenger. In this case, the way to a person's heart is not through their stomach.
Jennifer Roush for the editorial board
Feedback
Protesters don't get at heart of abortion issue
The recent debate and violence on campus surrounding the anti-abortion display has sparked in me an anger that is unrelenting. This issue is no where near a resolution.
The reason this issue will not be resolved is because people like you (I know not who you are, I just passed you on my way in and out of the library) stand around, hold up your signs and pictures and try and make people feel bad about themselves. We live in a world that forces young couples to carry a baby to term and dispose of it either in a dumpster or a toilet. This is what the protests have created. Until we change our attitudes to begin fostering a world where women and men believe in themselves enough to love safely and talk about sex and contraception, there will still be a need for this tragedy. So what I
want to ask all of the protesters (pro & con) is what do we do?
Do we support relationships that are unhealthy and surrounded by unsafe sexual practices? Do we celebrate people's independent life decisions and not judge them?
I have personally seen both sides of this coin, and neither is pretty. Until we begin to work together for a world that supports a loving, caring awareness of different people and their lives, this issue will not be solved. So before we waste our afternoon holding up a sign, let's sit down and ask what do I do?
All opinions deserve right to free expression
Erika Jacobson Glendale. Ariz.. graduate student
Most students on this campus claim to believe that every person is entitled to his or her own opinion and the nonviolent expression of that opinion. In light of this, I am amazed at the number of students on this campus who adamantly oppose the Pro-Life display simply because they disagree with the message it promotes. I think that it is very hypocritical to pay lip service to freedom to particular points of view.
To those who argue that the Pro-life demonstration is obnoxious and disruptive, I would reply that the vocal chanting by those who are Pro-choice is no less obnoxious. If a gay-rights group, or an anti-racism group, or an anti-war group had used a similar display to promote their view, I would bet that the response would not have been to tell that group to stop being so pushy. If we truly believe in freedom of expression, then we should be mature enough to support that freedom even when it goes against our personal beliefs.
Hannah Willems Lawrence senior
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
“Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.” —Arthur Helps
How to submit letters and guest columns
Leters: 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 hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
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Perspective
Self control undermines anti-abortionists' tactics
I would like to take this opportunity to immerse the mainstream campus community into the world of a minority student for just a moment to ensure that
our viewpoint is heard concerning the tactics used by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.
Conway Ekpo
Guest columnist
This past Sunday, I was driving my car onto Daisy Hill and witnessed a site that our own chancellor said "may be repugnant to many." However, what interested me was not so much the large anti-abortion displays, but rather the students who were lined up in protest in front of them.
Recognizing some of my fellow African-American students, I pulled up to see what all the trouble was about and found large pictures of my brothers being lynched by southern racists. Now, some may think, "so what?" or "what's the problem with that?" and I would say to those people, let a picture of your dead brother be used as the means for advertising some arbitrary message and then we can discuss how that would make you feel.
The entire point that these were anti-abortion signs was missed completely by many of the African American students who had assembled outside of Mrs. E's, and by me as well. Instead of provoking discussion on abortion, the images of lynchings and Holocaust victims provoked a reaction of outrage and protest against the means used by the center to justify its points. It was only a matter of time before tension overtook the angry and confused tension that had just witnessed someone drive their car through a display.
Soon we became restless and decided to get some answers out of the organization. As we approached a representative, some of us had already begun to besiege one of the display signs. I watched in awe as the representative ran over and pushed one young brother, only to receive instant retaliation to his initiation of physical contact.
The meeting provided an atmosphere that was conducive to understanding between the center and the minority campus community. It was the first time that we were able to voice our opinions to the center and get some results.
The Kansas University Police Department was already on the scene and, fortunately, the violence was short-lived. The conflict between the African-American protesters
and the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform was more than obvious at this point.
The meeting that took place between the Black Student Union and the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform was well attended by many African Americans, as well as nonAfrican-American students. Representatives from Hilille, HALO, First Nation, Pro Choice, and the Students Against Racism attended and added necessary view points to the dialogue that was at times heated and touchy.
This is when the Executive Director for the Center, Gregg Cunningham, approached the crowd and asked to speak with any representative from the Black Student Union. I stepped forward and spoke to Cunningham, who assured me that his organization was not trying to offend the black community. In an effort to bring light to the situation, we set up a meeting that took place this Tuesday.
I think that we, as a Black community, can become so wrapped up in the heat of the moment when it comes to race issues, that we sometimes forget where the focus is supposed to be. This can lead us into exactly where we do not want to be, and we have to be careful to handle important issues like this as professional African-American students at an institute of higher learning. I could choose to be violent, but then, you see, that is exactly the kind of response they want me to make, and I am not about to play into that game.
The way I see it, there is a choice to be made, but it has nothing to do with the 25-year-old Supreme Court case concerning abortion. This choice is one that we must all make, whether you're Black, white, Jewish, pro-choice, anti-abortion, it doesn't matter. The protests were here and the damage has been done, but we all have the choice of whether we are going to let this organization affect and manipulate our emotions, our actions and our lives with its
Conway Ekpo, vice-president of BSU, is a Lawrence senior majoring in architectural engineering.
Abortion does compare to Holocaust, slavery
What is it about this pecu of images that causes such vitriol and anger?
The recent furor about a campus abortion protest has caused me to reflect. The Holocaust, slavery, abortion. What is it about this peculiar juxtaposition of images that causes
Many people have stated their objections in the context of insensitivity, racism, or trivialization of tragic historical events. These objections go less to the actual pictorial depiction of historical events and more to the comparison being made to them. After all, pictorial depictions of both the atrocities inflicted on European Jewry in the 20th century and those inflicted on American Blacks are often praised.
Caleb
Stegall
Guest columns
The Holocaust Museum in Washington contains far more graphic pictures than the current abortion protest, as did the recent Steven Spielberg movie Amistad. Yet these cultural statements are praised as remembrances of the evil powerful human beings can unleash against powerless human beings. Why? Because they are in sync with the political orthodoxy of our day.
Very few things are more anathema in today's culture than the de-humanizing of a group of persons based on their racial heritage. And rightly so.
The ironic thing, however, seems to be that the one cultural statement which is potentially as anathema as de-humanization based on race is humanization based on age. At the end of the day, isn't this the message being delivered on our campus this week? That the youngest and most helpless of our species is entitled to the same fundamental rights that Black people and Jewish people are entitled to? Rights that at one time were denied to those groups and that at this time are being denied to another group?
Those raising objections to this message reveal their ideology. Unborn children should not be humanized because they are not human beings. Therefore, comparisons to "real" de-humanization is objectionable. The logic of this position would be impeccable if the underlying premise was defensible. The thing is, it isn't.
Let us start with the obvious. "A horse is a
horse, of course, of course." So goes the
TV-show ditty. A human is a human, right? Wrong. There have been many definitions of what it means to be human throughout the ages. The scope of true humanity has been limited at various times by everything from sex to property ownership, from language capacity to mental ability, from skin color to skull width. These days it is limited variously by age, consciousness, and viability. One might wonder if all of the various definitions have only been so much justification given by those in power to rationalize their penchant for trampling on the rights of the powerless. But let us give those advancing technical definitions the benefit of the doubt and enter the fracas on their terms. What makes an organism a human?
The most empirically reliable means for differentiating one species from another is genetic. One need not be a geneticist to understand the test. Muskratis beget muskrats. Humans beget other humans. But, the argument goes, a human liver bears the genetic stamp of human and no one accords a liver constitutional rights. This is because a human liver. Although it is human tissue, is not alive. For human tissue to be classified as a person and accorded rights, it must bear the characteristic of life.
So when does a fertilized human egg, clearly human tissue, take on the characteristic of life and become due certain rights? The consensus in the medical community is that life begins at conception. But again, let us assume we need a more technical definition. The accepted medical means for determining when a patient has died is a test designed to measure brain waves. If brain waves are present, the tissue is alive.
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, this same brain-wave activity that renders you or I alive is present in a six-week old fetus. Therefore, even under the most technical of definitions, a fetus is due fundamental human rights six weeks from conception.
If one can accept this reality, then the comparison of abortion to the Holocaust or slavery begins to make sense. People are people and they all deserve fundamental rights. This latest exclusion from the human family by linguistic tricks is no less tragic than the historical exclusions we all recognize.
Stegall, vice-president of the KU Christian Legal Society, is a Lawrence second-year-law student.
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