The people say...
More contraceptive controversy
(Editor's Note: The editors have received numerous letters regarding the dispensing of birth control drugs to unmarried students by Watkins Hospital. Watkins does not dispense such drugs at this time, although it will give information to anyone who wants it. Dr. Raymond Schwegler, director of the hospital, said recently that the health service would not give birth control materials to unmarried students under any circumstances.
Four of the letters received by the UDK appear on this page today. A series of articles on the pill at KU and elsewhere will begin on Wednesday's editorial page. The Jules Feiffer cartoon, normally a Monday editorial feature, will appear in tomorrow's Kansan.)
Morality or coercion?
To the editor:
The current question on campus concerning contraception is something of a "natural" at evoking comment. One particular aspect of the elicited controversy has served, in turn, to stimulate this response to the issue of the dispensing of such items to single students.
"Morality" seems to be the concept to which the likes of Dr. Schwegler and Mr. Prentice (UDK, Nov. 10) beat a hasty retreat. My response is directed not at anyone's personal moral system, but instead focuses upon the perceived irresponsible use of the concept "morality" as employed primarily by the "anti-pill" proponents.
MR. PRENTICE ALLUDES to the probability that "... if contraceptives were available to single persons, there would be more pre-marital intercourse," and Dr. Schwegler intimates the same dire consequences. Thus if one believes that pre-marital intercourse is "sinful," it is asserted to follow that to provide the increased possibility for such activities would be "immoral."
I must insist that the question here is not one of morality but of coercion. Morality in a situation has meaning only when there exists the opportunity for choice—for free decision. When one's responses or response possibilities are forced upon him by external conditions (be they policemen or doctor, ignorance or fear) the question of morality is no longer of central relevance. Generally, in this culture we hold that one shall not be judged morally on the basis of those consequences for which he is not perceived responsible. That is, morality presupposes the conditions of maximally free choice.
Unless the student has free access to the "best" forms of contraception, he (she) does not have the opportunity to make an honest and moral (or immoral) decision about intercourse. Insofar as the fear of the possibility of pregnancy serves to deter people from "participating," that restraint can in no way be considered a product of a "moral decision." Only when maximally free to engage in such behaviors can one make the "moral" decision not to so participate.
IT THUS FOLLOWS from this line of thinking that the ultimate in immorality is to officially deny from thousands (on this campus alone) the possibility of making their own decisions concerning pre-marital intercourse. And although it is an entirely different argument, one must keep in mind the fact that a substantial number of students feel that pre-marital intercourse, per se, is not immoral, and have the very real and sometimes difficult decision to engage in these activities despite the current health and social dangers of pregnancy.
Though admittedly it is not an adequate basis upon which to justify the prescription of contraceptives, I would submit that evidence of the following nature must be realistically evaluated. A friend who does considerable counseling with unmarried students (a number of whom have obtained the pill—legally, and obviously not through the campus hospital) believes that these individuals seem to have come face-to-face with the real issues and decisions at hand and consequently have, in line with these relaizations of true personal responsibility, more basis upon which to act responsibly and maturely.
PROMISCUITY IS NO more the consequence of sexual freedom than revolution is the consequence of political freedom. The persons who insist on thinking it is reveal their lack of understanding of themselves and of man in general, and these are the individuals whose impulses and desires, if treated as omnipotent, are potentially damaging to the thought and action process in a "free" society—presumably exemplified most by the University.
And, all other issues aside, would not the imputed "temptation to sin" offered by the availability of contraceptives be more than counterbalanced if only one pre-marital pregnancy and the accompanying anguish were prevented?
— Dennis J. Nauman
Gettysburg, S.D., graduate student
Hurrah! Hurrah!
To the editor:
Hurrah for James Prentice! Hurrah for Dr. Schwegler! If only there were more people like these, wouldn't this be the model campus? Oh, and all our students would be so happy and so fulfilled just knowing that there's nothing standing in their way to becoming real, live fathers and mothers.
I think we should start a revolutionary organization right here at KU! . . . with Mr. Prentice as the head! We could ban the pill, sex, and, while we're at it, the human race! Anyone who regards a university as a servant of society alone, rather than the producer of society's leaders and thinkers and the master of society is truly revolutionary! This thing could catch on. Imagine . . . leaders who follow!
IT'S INTERESTING, too, how Mr. Prentice befuddles his foe with awesome diversionary tactics in his statement of faith. Notice this, all students of puritanism; he states, "... it is not
a question which should be answered by the individual student. . . . " Then, two-hundred, twenty-three words later he says, "... intercourse is a moral issue that must be resolved by the persons involved in a relationship. . . ." Such blinding logic and sound reason!
Mr. Prentice is a firm advocate of hemlines that drag the ground, drapes sparing the blushing legs of pianos, and the return of the iron-fisted chaperon. We should prohibit holding hands on campus, fence off Potter Lake, and separate the boy's and girl's dorm with police dogs, he seems to say.
Speaking for myself, I would like to inform Mr. Prentice of a thing called total commitment which can come only through genuine feelings of two people in love, contrary to Mr. Prentice's admonition of love in marriage only, and no love without marriage. Mr. Prentice, can't two people be in love without getting married?
— Marc Fisher
Topeka freshman
Aesthetic education needed
To the editor:
James Prentice's medieval letter cannot be allowed to be the last word on birth control pills.
I would like to inform Mr. Prentice that he is not in a position to tell Mr. Ellis, or anyone else, what the nature of love is, and what can be beautiful between two people. In fact, in comparing love-making with murder, as an act that should be punished, he shows himself to be dangerously confused, even for his own purposes.
PRE-MARTIAL SEX is widespread on campus, but Mr. Prentice is probably right in assuming that it would be increased if the pill were available to any coed who wanted it. His mistake is in condemning this situation.
The fact is, people want to make love to each other and the guilt associated with love is being left back in the 19th century, where it belongs. It is obvious that this is a source of frustration for Mr. Prentice.
The real moral problem is one of aesthetic education; that is, learning how to really love someone so that lovemaking does not become a superficial and mechanical process. There are enough legitimate things to feel guilty and worried about, without inventing artificial hang-ups concerning one of the most simple and beautiful things in life.
BEING AGAINST contraceptives as he is, I am probably right in assuming that Mr. Prentice is also paradoxically against abortion. So, we should all live without love until we decide to get married. Sick.
As for the "doctrines of society." I think the only reasonable thing to do is to put the issue to
Official Bulletin
TODAY
Grad. Physics Coll., 4:30 p.m. Pref. Culvahouse, KU, 155 Malott.
Lecture, 4:30 p.m. Prof. Wilson Martins, NYU. "Brazilian Literature & Cultural Fusion." Forum Room, Kansas Union.
Student Peace Union Open Meeting,
7:30 p.m. Kansas Union.
KU Dames, 8 p.m. Watkins Room, Kansas Union.
Daily Kansas
Monday, November 14. 1966
2
a vote with the student body, a vote which might shock the administration. After all, we can't listen to the society outside the
university. All they want to do is go to war.
J. Gary Brown,
Lawrence Graduate Student
PARAGRAPH SIX, for example, is utterly ridiculous, trying in some vague manner to equate a dubious statement about the relationship between murder and the death penalty (which I have to assume is what he meant by the "punishment for murder") and pre-marital relations and pregnancy. He first prejudges the issue, holding, apparently, that his opinion is fact and then attempting to support his opinion by another that is inapplicable to the original question in his frame of reference in the first place, and not provable in the second.
To the editor:
Mr. Lee Elis' article brought out some valid flaws in the argument of Dr. Schwegler. However, the retort of James Pretice unfortunately is only a diatribe rehashing the old, let me say anachronistic, arguments of this seemingly important subject.
Seemingly important
The article sounds like something that a midwestern freshman coed would write. It is enough that our intelligence is sometimes insulted in the classrooms, but in our own newspaper? A good argument bears a good reply, out of politeness alone if not for the intellectual value. A bad argument should never be origned, for it only belittles the side that it advocates.
In order not to seem hypocritical, I will offer two arguments against those of Elis:
- Workability: one must be
realistic. The vast majority of Kansas voters would be against any such extensions of the "Health Service," and, therefore, it is infeasible to pressure the university administration for it.
A Moral Reason: there are surely those on this campus who could responsibly handle the pills, both overtly (discretely) and psychologically, but there are also those who would not do the former (although this is relatively unimportant to the argument) and those who could not handle the latter. The very fact that they could not handle the psychological aspects of pre-marital relations would indicate that they mig<sup>h</sup>t not be aware of their limitations and dependencies (innocents as it were).
THIS LAST POINT is something along the order that the majority (or is it the minority?) has an obligation not to impose its will on a minority, if such would be detrimental to them. I think that this is clearly the case.
This need, possibly, could be obviated if good education were given on the subject, but it isn't. However, that this question has been raised (once unmentionable even our time) demonstrates that our morals are changing in this direction and that one day (as soon as this generation's ideas and influence is sufficiently powerful) such measures will be possible to institute.
Robert Hugh Cerner
Bartlesville, Okla., junior
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