NEWS
College ad censorship draws anti-abortion ire
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- Abortion rights advertising targets 'extreme' legislators (March 10, 2008)
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by Beth Mueller
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
An anti-abortion group complained Tuesday that three
Wisconsin college newspapers had rejected its advertisements.
Pro-Life Wisconsin said its ads were submitted to and
rejected by the Marquette University Tribune, the UW-Stout Stoutonia and the
UW-La Crosse Racquet.
“Be good to yourself over spring break,” the ad reads. “Make
smart choices the night before … that way you won’t have any emergencies to
deal with the morning after!”
It also says emergency contraception is a powerful, high
dose of steroids that “tricks a woman’s body into thinking it is pregnant” and
can cause “chemical abortions and deadly blood clots.”
According to professor William Thorn, chairman of the board
for Marquette University Student Media, the advertisements were “a topic of
considerable discussion,” reaching up the chain of command to the board. Thorn
said some topics, including abortion, are automatically red-flagged in
advertising, requiring review.
“I think if it had come in a day earlier, under deadline, we
may have been able to resolve this,” Thorn said.
He added the students had objected to the term “chemical
abortion,” though he had been concerned with the “unsubstantiated” medical
claim about blood clots.
“The advertising space closed before I could really get the
kind of information and resolution I would have needed,” Thorn said.
According to UW-La Crosse Racquet Editor in Chief Andrea
Wilson, that paper is not finished considering the ad either.
“In the past we have had issues on campus with
advertisements of this nature, so we are taking our time in discussions about
whether we should run it, but we have never said we wouldn’t run this ad,”
Wilson said.
Members of the UW-Stout Stoutonia staff were not available
for comment as of press time.
Pro-Life Wisconsin said the ads were rejected because of the
papers’ viewpoints.
“College newspapers have always fashioned themselves as
supporting free speech more than any other newspaper, but it seems like it’s
only free speech for the message they want to put out,” said Virginia Zignego,
communications director for the group.
The Badger Herald, the UW-Superior Stinger and papers from
UW-Platteville and UW-Milwaukee were among publications to accept the ads.
Zignego also complained that colleges have encouraged use of
emergency contraception in the past.
“In 2005, UHS ran an ad urging students to prepare for
spring break by stocking up on emergency contraception,” Zignego said.
Targeted representatives demand abortion rights groups
pull ads
After calling some advertisements from Planned Parenthood
and NARAL Pro-Choice “false” Friday, state Rep. Jim Ott, R-Mequon, demanded
Tuesday that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel stop running the ads.
Rep. Mark Honadel, R-South Milwaukee, joined Ott Monday in
denouncing the ads and demanding they be retracted.
In the radio versions of this set of ads, announcers said
Ott or one of three other representatives supports Wisconsin’s criminal
abortion ban, under which rape victims who have an abortion could be threatened
with prison.
A similar online version has run on the Journal Sentinel’s
website.
Ott called the advertisements “boldfaced lies” and said the
Journal Sentinel did not have the “courtesy or the journalistic integrity to
check with somebody when a statement is made about them that is outrageous on
its face.”
Kelda Helen Roys, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice,
said the legislators had their chance to stand against punishments for rape
victims who get abortions during a vote on an amendment two weeks ago. Ott has
said he voted against it because it could have compromised the bill in
question, a ban on partial-birth abortions.
“Their votes speak for themselves,” Roys said. “We
absolutely stand by our ads.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did not return requests for
comment as of press time.
Anonymous (March 12, 2008 @ 6:18am):
Such nonsense. It has been my experience that college-aged women respond quite well to abstinence-only education, such as when they are reminded of what kind of child or ailments they could contract were they to engage in such ghastly acts as non-marital relations with godly individuals such as myself.
- Germain Q. Stemme
Anonymous (March 12, 2008 @ 6:47am):
There is no excuse for the UW System newspapers to reject the Pro-Life Wisconsin ads. The public universities shouldn't be able to discriminate against more conservative views.
Marquette's paper and the other state papers that are faced with running abortion ads should do so, but they can do whatever they want as private entities. However, their credibility decreases when they censor advertisements.
Anonymous (March 12, 2008 @ 9:11am):
I don't see a problem with the first part of the ad - encouraging students to make responsible decisions - but the university is right to not print an ad that contains misleading information or outright lies. Emergency contraception is different from RU-486. Emergency contraception does NOT cause abortions, it is used to prevent pregnancy when taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Thorn was also made the correct call in wanting to investigate the blood clot claims.
If the pro-life group had stopped with encouraging responsible decisions, and left out the misleading parts of their ad, I bet it would have run with no problem.
Anonymous (March 12, 2008 @ 9:42am):
Why is Ott so indignant? He says himself in the article that he voted against that amendment. We've had enough empty talk from politicians, and the mere possibility of prosecuting rape victims is absolutely outrageous. He should do the right thing and clarify this issue with votes rather than words.
Anonymous (March 12, 2008 @ 11:23am):
Actually, when the morning after pill went OTC, one of the concerns was that approving over-the-counter access to a high dose of this drug, when a lower-dose cannot be obtained without a medical exam, physician oversight and prescription, exposes women, teenagers and girls to complications such as blood clots and heart attacks. The morning after pill - aka emergency contraception - is a higher dose of the Pill.
John McAdams (March 12, 2008 @ 1:38pm):
Interesting that you use "anti-abortion" for one side of the argument, and then "abortions rights" for the other.
That's journalistic bias.
If you want to use "abortion rights," you should use "right to life."
Anonymous (March 12, 2008 @ 4:26pm):
If ovulation has already occurred, then fertilization could take place and voila, the other mechanism, making the uterine lining inhospitable to the newly conceived human being occurs, and the baby cannot implant and starves to death. Yes, a baby can die with the MAP. Also, the mother can die from stroke, due to blood clotting. All such hormones have these dangerous side-effects! Read the package label! All such hormones also pollute the streams and lakes causing malformations in fish and other animals. But of course according to the prevailing PC facism, if mothers and babies are expendible, what does it matter what happens to animals?
Anonymous (March 12, 2008 @ 6:51pm):
Ott is correct that NARAL lied, which is no surprise given their track record. Women could not be prosecuted due to a 1985 law that explicitly amended an older law that did allow for prosecution of women. The 1985 changes ensured women would never be prosecuted in the unlikely event the older laws against abortion were ever again made enforceable.
Anonymous (March 13, 2008 @ 3:12pm):
First, it appears that these school papers are still in the decision making process. They haven't censored anything. Second, the papers have real concerns based on the factual innacuracy contained in the ad. The pills have no steroids. They are hormone based. Third, if Pro-Life Wisconsin's true goal was to raise student awareness as they head off to spring break, perhaps they should have listened to the paper's concerns, modified their message and still reached the target audience with an effective message. Instead, they chose to issue press releases screaming censorship. Now it is too late to get a valid, reasonable message out before spring break. I wonder if the censorship message was more important to Pro-Life Wisconsin than student health awareness to begin with.
A Concerned Parent
Anonymous (March 14, 2008 @ 2:56pm):
It's not at all surprising. This is why so many people want to come to America to party--our women are wordly known as promiscuous and preferencing "successful" occupations over motherly duties.
Our women have the sexual undiscipline to say "yes" to consensual sex, especially since most of them are chemically induced agreements, then the ungodly nerve to say "no" to the outcome.
Abortion is not just murder, it's idolatry--the females are preferring a career without a child, befroe a career with a child.
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