Oregon Daily Emerald
Monday, January 10, 2005
NEWS STAFF
(541)346-5511
JEN SUDICK
EDITOR IN CHIEF
STEVEN R. NEUMAN
MANAGING EDITOR
IARED PABEN
AY1SHA YAHYA
NEWS EDITORS
MEGUANN CUNIFF
PARKER HOWEI1
SENIOR NEWS REPORTERS
MORIAH RAUNGIT
AMANDA BOLSINGER
ADAM CHERRY
KARA HANSEN
ANTHONY LUCERO
NEWS REPORTERS
CLAYTON (ONES
SPORTS EDITOR
ION ROETMAN
SENIOR SPORTS REPORTER
STEPHEN MILLER
BRIAN SMITH
SPORTS REPORTERS
RYAN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
NATASHA CHIL1NGER1AN
SENIOR PULSE REPORTER
AMY EIGHTY
RYAN MURPHY
PULSE REPORTERS
CAT RALDWIN
PULSE CARTOONIST
DAVID IAGERNAUTH
EDITORIAL EDITOR
JENNIFER MCBRIDE
AILEE SLATER
TRAVIS WILLSE
COLUMNISTS
ASHLEY GRIFFIN
SUPPLEMENT
FREELANCE EDITOR
GABE BRADLEY
NEWS FREELANCE EDITOR/
DIRECTOR OF RECRUITMENT
DANIELLE HICKEY
PHOTO EDITOR
LAUREN WIMER
SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
TIM BOBOSKY
PHOTOGRAPHER
NICOLE BARKER
ERIK B1SHOFF
PART-TIME PHOTOGRAPHERS
BRET FURTWANGLER
GRAPHIC ARTIST
KIRA PARK
DESIGN EDITOR
WENDY K1EFFER
AMANDA LEE
DUSTIN REESE
BRIAN N E SHOL1AN
DESIGNERS
SHADRA B LESLEY
IFANN1E EVERS
COPY CHIEFS
KIMBERLY BLACKFIELD
PAUL THOMPSON
SPORTS COPY EDITORS
AMANDA EVRARD
AMBER L1NDROS
NEWS COPY EDITORS
LINDSAY BURT
PULSE COPY EDITOR
ADRIENNE NELSON
ONLINE EDITOR
SLADE LEESON
WEBMASTER
BUSINESS
(541)346-5511
JUDY R1EDL
GENERAL MANAGER
KATHY CARBONE
BUSINESS MANAGER
REBECCA CRITCHETT
RECEPTIONIST
NATHAN FOSTER
AIBING GUO
ANDREW LFAHY
JOHN LONG
HOLLY MISTELL
DISTRIBUTION
ADVERTISING
(541)346-3712
MELISSA GUST
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
TYLER MACK
SALES MANAGER
MATT BETZ
HERON CA1JSCH-DOLEN
MEGAN HAMLIN
KATE HIRONAKA
MAEGAN KASER-LEE
MIA LEIDELMEYER
EMILY PHILBIN
SHANNON ROGERS
SALES REPRESENTATIVES
KELLEE KAUFTHE1L
AD ASSISTANT
CLASSIFIED
(541) 3464343
TRINA SHANAMAN
CLASSIFIED MANAGER
KA1Y GAGNON
SABRINA GOWITTE
LESLIE STRAIGHT
KERI SPANGLER
KATIE STRINGER
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
ASSOCIATES
PRODUCTION
(541)3464381
MICHELE ROSS
PRODUCTION MANAGER
TARA SI OAM
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
JEN CRAMLEr
KRISTEN DICHARRY
CAMERON GAUT
IONAH SCIIROGIN
DESIGNERS
The Oregon Daily Emerald is pub
lished daily Monday through Fn
day during the school year by the
Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing
Co. Inc., at the University of Ore
gon, Eugene, Ore. The Emerald
operates independently of the
University with offices in Suite
300 of the Erb Memorial Union.
The Emerald is private property'.
Unlawful removal or use of
papers is prosecutable by law.
"?00R COMMON W?
wh« NO SIR///
THIS little PARUN'J BEST &*Y5
ARE m AHEAD OF 'ER//
AN' IF Y'ALL'5 WILLIN' TO M£
JUST A $mL DOWN Bwletfr
THEN I GOT ONE PWf
OF A TDRYUH
Contraception
PROTECTION
“A reproductive right”— a cliche
phrase that stands for one of two
general ideals: for abortion or
against? Beyond the inherent prob
lems in asking ourselves to choose
between black and white, U.S. citi
zens must now deal with a new gray
area emerging into the sphere of po
litical discussion. Pro-death or pro
misogyny won’t come into play here;
the issue is not abortion but birth
control.
For those of us who believed that
a fight about hormone pills and con
doms was a fad of the ‘70s, like disco
and sequins, I am sad to report that
it seems to be making a dramatic
comeback. Pennsylvania Senator
Rick Santorum, the third-ranking Re
publican in our nation’s senate, is
pushing the envelope of privacy and
basic rights in his opposition to con
traception. Santorum is not just talk
ing about abortion pills, he’s talking
about birth control pills. According
to a recent Newsweek article, Santo
rum believes that each state should
have the right to regulate contracep
tion as it sees fit, meaning that San
torum would support, for instance,
Oregon if it decided to ban the sale
and use of any contraceptive. Com
ing from a high-ranking senator who
has expressed wishes to run for pres
ident, this fact is certainly unsettling.
Also upsetting is the fact that San
torum has quietly, yet publicly, ex
pressed his opposition most strongly
to one form of pre-emptive birth con
trol in particular: the pill. According
to a quote from Santorum about his
opposition to birth control pills in
Prevention Magazine, he claims to
be against insurers covering medica
tion which “would lead to a fertil
ized egg not being implanted in the
AILEE SLATER
FURTHER FROM PERFECTION
uterus ... I would not support drugs
that would prevent a conceived em
bryo (from being) implanted.”
Of course, the error in Santorum’s
thinking is amusing as well as dis
turbing. I shudder to think hov
many politicians are making med
ically unsound decisions concerning
the bodies of women. Birth contro
pills are designed to deliver certair
hormones into a woman’s body ir
order to trick her system into think
ing that it is already pregnant, there
fore preventing the release of an egg
For Santorum to claim that birth con
trol pills could possibly stop an al
ready fertilized egg from becoming i
fetus demonstrates a complete lacl
of knowledge about an issue fo:
which, as a policy-maker, he shouk
be intimately acquainted with.
Likewise, emergency contracep
tion manipulates hormones in th<
same manner, simply at a larger lev
el. If conception has occurred, th<
“morning-after pill” will have ab
solutely no effect on this fertilizec
egg. The opposition to emergency
contraception as killing life, fron
both Santorum as well as an increas
ing number of conservatives, is sci
entifically unfounded. The Justici
Department recently published nev
guidelines for treating rape victims
which include no reference to emer
gency contraception as a method o
preventing pregnancy. Planned Par
enthood and the American Civil Lib
erties Union have already spoken out
against this prominent omission;
still, it is frightening to realize that it
is the radicals rather than leaders of
our country who are coming to the
aid of women recovering from rape.
Of course, it is not just these meth
ods of birth control coming under
fire. Santorum has made no distinc
tion between hormonal birth control
and latex birth control and this fact,
along with Bush’s well-known sup
port of abstinence-only education,
points to a group of policy-makers
amiable to the idea of condoms as a
; thing of the past. This particular
group just happens to be in charge of
The United States of America, mean
ing that without left-wingers assert
ing power, the legality of our little la
tex friends might be liable to go
limp. And, at the point where con
doms are being discussed, sexually
transmitted diseases and AIDS in re
i lation to policies of contraception
present even more concerns within
backwards ideas on birth control.
1 It is just one senator from Pennsyl
vania, and it is just one former gov
ernor from Texas. Just one partial
■ birth abortion policy, just one
emergency-contraception regulation.
‘ It is just one Justice Department. It
may seem impossible, improbable
1 and everything in between that birth
’ control, just birth control, could ever
i be illegal. Let us hope that those run
ning our nation will remember that
human rights and women’s rights
! have taken us this far; now is not the
r time to turn back the clock.
f
aileeslater@ dailyemerald, com
OREGON DAILY EMERALD LETTERS POLICY
Letters to the editor and guest commentaries are encouraged, and should tie sent to letters@dailyemerald.com or submitted at the Oregon Daily Emerald office, EMU Suite 300. Electronic
submissions are preferred. Letters are limited to 250 words, and guest commentaries to 550 words. Authors are limited to one submission per calendar month. Submissions should
include phone number and address for verification. The Emerald reserves the r#it to edit for space, grammar and style. Guest submissions am published at the discretion of the Emerald.
■ Editorial
Columnist
bribed to
push Bush
A black media pundit who is willing to de
nounce so-called “black groupthink” in sup
port of conservative policies is worth his
weight in Republican gold. Literally.
On Jan. 7, USA Today reported that the
Bush administration paid (or more accurately
bribed) syndicated columnist Armstrong
Williams to produce positive press about the
president’s chief education reform legislation,
No Child Left Behind. The payola scheme cost
taxpayers $240,000.
For his egregious ethical violation, Williams
has lost his newspaper syndication contract
with TVibune Media Services and most of his
friends in the conservative media. The Na
tional Review's Jonah Goldberg had to sheep
ishly admit “that if Bill Clinton had gotten
caught giving Joe Conason a quarter of a mil
lion dollars to be flogging their policies, guys
like me would have smoke coming out of our
ears, and the right would go crazy. ”
Even Williams himself, talking on CNN’s
“Crossfire” (or “Crosstalk” as it should be
called), couldn’t defend his own actions. “I
used bad judgment. As a media pundit, peo
ple have to trust what I say. They have to be
lieve in what I say. And they must believe that
I’m saying it not because I’m being paid. ... I
should be criticized, and I crossed some ethi
cal lines. I've learned from this. It will never
happen again.”
Only the responsibility-phobic Bush admin
istration seems unwilling to admit any wrong
doing. A Department of Education spokesper
son insisted that the bribe was “a permissible
use of taxpayer funds” that produced a
“straightforward distribution of information.”
Even Bill Clinton eventually said he was sorry.
Williams should give the $240,000 bribe
back to the American people, and Congress
should demand an investigation into the le
gality of the deal. The Government Account
ability Office (GAO) has already found the
Bush administration guilty of illegally using
taxpayer money on “covert propaganda” to
promote their Medicare prescription drug
plan. Video news segments were produced to
look like the real thing. The government was
never attributed as a source, thus violating
federal law.
An opinion columnist taking money to
write government propaganda is a horren
dous violation of journalistic ethics. Even
more disturbing is the Bush administration’s
attempt to deceive the public by presenting
propaganda as fact. Why should people trust
anything that the president or the media tells
them? At this point, they probably shouldn’t.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Jennifer Sudick Steven R. Neuman
Editor in Chief Managing Editor
David Jagernauth Gabe Bradley
Editorial Editor Freelance Editor
CORRECTION
In the Emerald’s article "ASUO leaders might not re
pay funds from trip,” which published Jan. 6, the
Emerald reported that the ASUO fall finance retreat
took place Oct. 10-12. The retreat was Oct. 8-10. The
Emerald regrets the error.