Easier to find in KC
Pills hard to get in Lawrence
and BARBARA PHILLIPS
and ERIC MORGENTHALER
An unmarried woman seeking birth control pills should look somewhere else than Lawrence.
Doctors in Lawrence, for the most part, do not dispense pills to unmarried women, although most of them will give pills to women who are engaged or suffer from unusual health problems.
DR. MARGARET CLARK, a Lawrence physician, said, "I give prescriptions to married women and to girls who come in and show me they are getting married. But to unmarried women? Heavens no!"
Most doctors questioned in Lawrence aligned with Dr. Clark. At Watkins Hospital, for example, oral contraceptives are very seldom prescribed for unmarried women.
A KU WOMAN who is not engaged or married would probably have the best luck getting a prescription for pills at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City or in the offices of certain Kansas City doctors.
Dr. A, Stark Wolkoff, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the medical center, said the staff of doctors there will usually prescribe oral contraceptives for women over 21 years of age without asking questions. A thorough medical examination is first required, however.
"We usually ask if it is a premarital examination," Dr. Wolkoff said. "If the patient says 'no,' we don't ask her if she is going to use the pill for moral or immoral purposes," he said.
ONE GYNECOLOGIST in Lawrence said he prescribes birth control pills for widows and divorcees, but prefers not to issue them to single women.
"I feel the sex attitude of widows and divorcees has changed from that of the single girl—especially when the woman has children," he said.
The same gynecologist said he does not issue pills to unmarried women very often because he does not want to get a reputation for "being a person who carries on such practices."
RECENTLY, Dr. Raymond Schwegler, director of Watkins Hospital, said the student health service would not give birth control materials to unmarried students under any circumstances.
"I know this is old-fashioned and mid-Victorian," he said, "but I don't want to do it and my staff backs me completely."
SCHWEGLER SAID he also has the backing of the university administration in his stand.
However, a member of the hospital staff, Dr. Mary Hatfield, said that sometimes she will issue pills to unmarried women with internal disorders. The prescriptions are for short periods of time, and they are usually issued only after the woman has undergone a physical examination.
MOST DOCTORS questioned in Lawrence indicated they do not receive many requests for pills from unmarried women.
Dr. R. W. McClure, a Watkins Hospital staff
physician, said he has had "virtually no requests for pills from unmarried women."
Dr. Clark said she might have three or four requests a week from unmarried women, but she turns them down.
Dr. Robert Hughes, a Lawrence physician, said that he rarely has requests from unmarried women for the pills.
AT THE MEDICAL CENTER in Kansas City, where pills are issued to unmarried women, the responsibility for the pill is placed on the shoulders of the user.
"First of all," Dr. Wolkoff said, "the birth control pill is permissive—the patient has to want the pill before we will prescribe it for her.
"The pill is prescribed when there is a medical reason," he continued. "If the patient is no longer interested in having babies or is not now interested, she may want an oral contraceptive."
DR. WOLKOFF SAID the pill prescribed must fit the individual's personality.
"When a woman comes in for the examination we require," he said, "we give her all kinds of contraceptive information. Only she can decide if the pill fits her personality."
Dr. Wolkoff said that when women under 21 years of age come in for pills, "I tell them that to protect myself and them, they should have their parents' permission."
(Tomorrow: the use of the Pill at KU.)
NEW BOOKS
SPIES, MYSTERY, derring-do. First, Catherine Gaskin's The File on Devlin (Crest, 60 cents). It's international intrigue, about a famous man presumed dead, but maybe defected to Russia. Anyway, these three people are in Switzerland, outside the guy's chateau, trying to figure out what's happened. What happens to them is the story.
Now Joyce Porter's Dover One (Crest, 50 cents). A first novel, a detective story that is old-fashioned enough to have a Scotland Yard inspector trying to investigate a disappearance in a little English town, Blackmail, illicit love, murder, and some humor, too.
CHARLOTTE ARMSTRONG'S The Witch House (Crest, 60 cents). If you read mystery novels you know Charlotte Armstrong, one of the damsel-in-distress gals. This one is about a college professor and a nutty old woman and a mean dog and the shocking secret of a colleague. Wow.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
The people say...
To the editors:
As many other students, I have found that a motorcycle is a rapid, economical, and enjoyable means of transportation. Unfortunately, there seem to be a number of automobile equipped persons who have the nasty idea that they may, with impunity, attempt to slaughter any and all persons riding motorcycles.
At least such is the case with the young witch who attacked me with one (a relatively new mid-priced GM product) at the intersection of 11th and Kentucky recently. Her excuse probably would have been, "But I didn't see him coming down Kentucky"; yet if she had come six inches farther out, the motorcycle would have been flipped.
THE MORTALITY rate in motorcycle vs. automobile accidents is great. Automobiles are not inherently dangerous, but the drivers are, when they do not pay attention to their task, but prefer to hold animated conversations instead of drive properly.
National Safety Council statistics prove that the automobile is more deadly than any firearm, which should make a narrow escape like mine today rank as assault with a deadly weapon.
If the young lady recalls nearly hitting me, and would like to know what a near miss feels like, I can take her out shooting and arrange to miss a vital organ by the same margin by which she missed me: less than six inches.
Lawrence graduate student
LONGHORNS SURVIVE
AUSTIN, Tex. — (UPI) The Texas longhorn cattle, rangy animals that became a symbol of the state, were once nearly extinct but now are numerous in Texas, on private ranches and in herds kept up by the state's conservation program.
2
Daily Kansan
editorial page Thursday, November 17, 1966
STRONG STUFF
as seen by EMERY GOAD
Speaking of Thanksgiving vacation, one student was overheard to say he couldn't wait for it to start, with all the food, term papers, reading assignments, book reports, down slip speeches, and. . .
One Manhattan sports writer said the other day that he thought coach Weaver at K-State, who resigned this week, really strained himself when he said, "no comment," through the fence at practice.
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After looking over the ASC ballots today at the polls we decided to vote. . NO!
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We hear that now the second Kansas college football coach has resigned . . . they say that the third time's a charm!
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There has been a lot of talk around KU lately about contraceptives but we realize that it is pretty rough to take.
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It's no secret that KU parents were notified of down slips yesterday and we've heard that there are a lot of students who are not answering their long distance phone calls today.
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