OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED DAILY SINCE 1912
4A
CRAG LANG, Editor
SUSANA LOOP, Managing editor
KIMBERLY CRATEFT, Editorial editor
TOM EBLEN, General manager, news adviser
MARK OZMEER, Business manager
DENNIS HAUPT, Retail sales manager
JUSTIN KRUPP, Technology coordinator
JAY STENER, Sales and marketing adviser
Wednesday, April 9, 1997
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Point / Counterpoint editorials
Right to Know Act would help women make abortion decision
Abortion is a dangerous, risky and mentally harmful medical procedure. It also is legal. When abortions are performed, however, physicians are not required to give a woman any more counseling or information than a mailed pamphlet. Recently, the Legislature tried to fix these inadequacies, but the Women's Right to Know Act failed in the Senate.
This is a travesty. Consider the irony: For all other major operations, doctors must carefully explain the risks involved a long time before the operation. Yet women can have an abortion after only reading a pamphlet.
The Women's Right to Know Act would have changed this. Informed consent by the standards of this bill meant that a woman had to meet with the physician who was to perform the
Kansas bill may have prevented a woman from making a bad decision.
abortion eight hours before the procedure. The physician would be required to supply the woman with the following information: the abortion method to be used; the risks related to the procedure, including risks to the woman's reproductive health; and the probable gestational age of the fetus, complete with pictures depicting its physical characteristics at the time of the abortion.
Another part of the bill would have required trained counselors to provide women with information about alternatives to abortion and support services that are available.
Penalties would be stiff if the requirements weren't met. Physicians would be fined no less than $1,000 and no more than $250,000 for failing to meet the requirements. These fines are not steep, considering that doctors can be sued for malpractice for failing to inform a patient of the risks involved for even a minor surgery.
However, many senators believed the bill to be too extreme.
The bill was not extreme. It may be an inconvenience for a woman to meet with her physician eight hours before the procedure, but if this meeting prevents a woman from making a decision that she may regret, then the inconvenience is worthwhile.
It is the woman's right to choose, but she also should have the right to know the risks.
NICOLE SKALLA FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Waiting period would have placed burden on women seeking abortions
The decision to have an abortion usually is an agonizing one for a woman in crisis. A recent bill in the Kansas Legislature ostensibly sought to help pregnant women make informed decisions by mandating pre-abortion counseling. But in reality, the measure was simply another misguided attempt to curtail a woman's right to obtain an abortion.
Kansas House Bill 2269, which passed the State House, was defeated in the Senate, would have required that any abortion-seeking woman be counseled in person by a physician or other qualified medical worker eight hours before having an abortion.
At first glance, this seems reasonable. But the bill, introduced by self-professed abortion foes, would place a hardship on many women seeking an
Abortion is never a good choice, but sometimes it's the best one a woman has.
abortion. Supporters of this legislation intend to make abortions more difficult to obtain. These attempts to chip away at a woman's right to choose come from people who seem to believe that if you disapprove of something strongly enough, it no longer will exist.
The reality is that abortion has been around since long before Roe vs. Wade. By making abortions more difficult to obtain, abortion is not being stopped. It is simply being driven underground in an attempt to return to the days of dangerous back-alley abortions.
Generally, people are not willing to adopt crack babies, babies with fetal alcohol syndrome or babies with birth defects. If these babies grow up to be criminals because they were born to a parent who didn't want them or couldn't care for them, many "pro-lifers" are likely to advocate the death penalty for their crimes.
When abortion was illegal in this country, many women died each year from illegal abortions and many more were maimed.
Life is a continuum, a process, not just the fertilization of an egg by sperm. It's possible to be born and yet never have much of a life.
Abortion is almost never a good choice, but sometimes it's the best one that a woman has.
MEREDITH TOENJES FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
LATINA SULJIVAN . . . Associate Editorial
KRISTIE BLASI . . . News
NOVELDA SOMMERS . . . News
LESLIE TAYLOR . . . News
AMANDA TRAUGHBER . . News
TARA TRENARY . . News
DAVID TESKA . . . Online
SPERCER DUNCAN . . Sports
GINA THORNBURG . . Associate Sports
BRADLEY BROOKS . . Campus
LINDSEY HENRY . . Campus
DAVE BRETTENSTEIN . Features
PAM DISHMAN . Photo
TYLER WIRKEN . Photo
BRYAN VOLK . Design
ANDY ROHRBACK . Graphics
ANDREA ALBIGHT . Wire
LZ MUSSER . Special sections
AERICA VAZEY . News clerk
NEWS EDITORS
ADVERTISING MANAGERS
ADVERTISING MANAGERS
HEATHER VALLER .Assistant retail
JULIE PEDLAR .Campus
DANA CENTENO .Regional
ANNETTE HOVER .National
BRIAN PAGEL .Marketing
SARAH SCHERWINSKI .Internet
DARCI MCLAIN .Production
DENA PISCOTTE .Production
ALLISON PIERCE .Special sections
SARA ROSE .Creative
DANA LAUUVET .Public relations
BRIAN LEFEVRE .Classified
RACHEL RUBIN .Assistant classified
BRIDGET COLLIER .Zone
JULIE DEWITT .Zone
CHRIS HAGHIRIAN .Zone
LIZ HESS .Zone
ANTHONY MILIAZSO .Zone
MARIA CRIST .Senior account executive
How to submit letters and guest columns
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All letter and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stuaffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Kim Crabtreat (opinion@kansan.com) or LaTina Sullivan (lisillian@kansan.com) at 864-4810.
Columns
Exprience is the key to candidates' success
Rather than perpetuate the drivel of Wescoe Beach, careful voters should consider a three-step process for judging candidates:
Whether you have a button on your backpack, you may be considering whom to vote for in the Student Senate election.
Define the office and its requirements. The student body president is responsible for serving on certain committees, for appointing students to various positions and for compiling a year-end report of the actions of the standing committees of Student Senate.
So the best presidential candidate would have committee experience and a history of leadership such as serving as chairman or heading a subcommittee. The candidate should have broad contacts with student leaders whom he or she could appoint as representatives to the committees that require student input. Finally, he or she should have experience with a variety of student concerns.
So how did we arrive two years ago when a student body presidential candidate gave condoms to students passing by? How does this tactic work? "Here's a condom. Could I tell you about my stance on the proposed technology fee?" My
The way a presidential contender runs his or her campaign also indicates how his or her administration would be conducted. Using a network of dedicated campaigners shows that a president knows how to build a solid team. Contacting students from diverse groups illustrates a desire to represent all student voices. Governing relies on bureaucracy and tradition, and using them in the campaign shows that an administration can work within the existing structure.
Reasonable action — not just the ability to perceive problems — must be required of candidates. Has the candidate conceived a solution to a problem? The ability to perceive a problem is useless if no action is taken; more failure comes from inaction than from doing the wrong thing.
Has the candidate acted on his or her ability to perceive a correctable situation? Student senator Ward Cook noticed that lighting was a problem. To help solve the it, he has served on the lighting board for several years. He surely was aware at the outset that he would be dealing with a boring topic but one that required attention. Voters should consider a candidate with such experience rather than, say, someone who hands out rubbers to strangers on the street.
Finally, combine the office with the candidate. Many of us had the red and blue plastic ball with different-shaped holes in it when we were children. The toy had numerous yellow shapes that would fit into the ball if placed through the right hole.
Transportation is such an issue. After all, any moron can conceive of a new system. But thinking of a way to use the existing system would be much more impressive.
As voters, we play the same game. I don't believe that Jason Fitzell is ever going to fit into the shape of a student body president, and it seems to me that most of Delta Force's candidates are so far out of touch with reality that they aren't even made of the right yellow plastic. Scott Sullivan and his slate of experienced, able candidates are the obvious choice for student government.
impression was, "If you really want to get screwed, vote for me."
Evaluate the candidate's actions prior to the election.
Andy Obermueller is a Liberal, Kan., Junior In Journalism.
Crash's story epitomizes bad movies, decisions
I saw David Cronenberg's *Crash* during the weekend. In case you haven't heard, it's the family film about a beautiful married couple who are so sexually jaded that they get into auto accidents to wet their amorous appetites (my alternate title: *The Getting Off Ramp*)
While the closing credits rolled, I sat in the dark while the mostly young-and-coupled audience scrambled to the exit (a bit too eager to get to the parking lot). I was struck by two fervent, burning hopes at the end. The first was that someday I will have had so much sex that I will be bored with it. The second was that I will see so many movies that I will not have to see Crash again.
It gave me a headache.
By the same characteristics, it had all the markings of a film that usually the intolerant find unusually difficult to tolerate.
After an aspirin and a drive home (in which I refused to use my turn signal while turning into traffic, in hopes of getting some action), I began to assess the film. Jam-packed with absurd metaphysical rambling and full of emotional distance and graphic physicality, Crash was an odd hybrid — Chekhov on crack mixed with the most promising moments of Showgirls. It was nothing great, but it was thought-provoking.
Ted Turner almost succeeded. When Time Warner Inc., in which Turner is a partner, acquired Fine Line Pictures, Crash's distributor, Turner freaked. He declared the film everything that is wrong with Hollywood and unsuitable for public viewing. Then Turner attempted to have the film withheld from distribution — not to mention passing on millions in merchandising tie-ins (Crash Matchbox cars, star Holly Hunter action figures complete with stand-ins for graphic nude scenes, McDonald's Crash Happy Meal with star James Spader figurine for girls, star Rosanna Arquette for boys, etc.) Ultimately, Turner succeeded in delaying the film's premiere and threw
off course its momentum from the Cannes Film Festival.
Argumentus Interruptus. Turner was not bound by the laws of God and man to release Crash. He is the independent head of a private distribution company, with the right to decide what he wants his company to release.
But I am disturbed that the man responsible for providing millions of us with WCW Wrestling and Brady Bunch reruns on SuperStation TBS suddenly sees himself as America's moral guardian.
The simple fact is that Turner and others like him are attempting to dictate what we can experience and how we can experience it. His soul mate is Jack Valenti, the Motion Picture Association of America president who is ultimately responsible for a film rating. According to recent exposés of the MPAA, Valenti is less concerned with informing the public of film content than with pushing his own personal moral agenda, and punishing films that do not fit his standards with the capriciously assigned and commerciality-killing NC17.
Now Turner, Valenti and others of their ilk are trying to adult-proof the cinematic world, turning the bitter pill of reality into liquid aspirin, watered-down, sickly sweet and easily dispensed.
Cinema that reflects reality and transcends the boundaries of being human should not be suppressed. Art — even bad art — should be encouraged. Sometimes you have to show people being generally unpleasant. Sometimes you have to show naked actors pretending to have sex. In the case of Crash, sometimes you need to do it 20 or 30 times. Sometimes you have to take risks that offend.
I didn't particularly care for *Crash's* artistic statement, but I will take it any day over the kinds of films Ted Turner and Jack Valenti are trying to ease down our throats, the PG-13 audience pleasers full of cardboard characters and stock stunts. More harmful than a million *Crashes*, these films have no artistic purpose.
Michael Martin is a Lenexa sophomore in English and Journalism.
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE