Friday, October 28, 2005

Global Gags Rules Problematic, Local Gag Rules Even More Problematic

Students for Choice at the University of Arizona have put out a call for assistance.

As most of you know, the University of Arizona has its very own gag rule. In 1974, the Arizona state legislature gave the university $5.5 million for football stadium renovations, but under the condition that the university would agree to a law prohibiting the education of the abortion procedure at any public university within the state (including, therefore, the University of Arizona). In turn, the University Medical Center does not provide abortion services, unless the life of the mother is threatened by her pregnancy.

On Saturday, November 5, the university will be holding its annual Homecoming football game. Students for Choice is taking the opportunity to "smear" campus and hand out flyers regarding this state law and what can be done about it
throughout the day during the festivities. We are taking this on as a community education campaign in order to raise awareness among university alumni, students, and the Tucson community about this generally "hush-hush" law.

Basically, we need all the help and support we can get in order to make this a largely successful event. We would greatly appreciate your participation (or your organization's participation) and/or donations for this education campaign (our goal is to hand out 1,000 to 5,000 copies of this flyer, so we mainly need help with covering the cost of these copies or getting resources where we can make copies).

The contact for Students for Choice
studentsforchoiceua@yahoo.com

2 comments:

Michael said...

UMC does not stock emergency contraception, which is NOT an abortifacient.

A relatively easy victory for Students for Choice might be to organize around this issue. The law technically does not ban EC and there is no reasonable or logical reason why the UMC pharmacy should refuse to dispense it.

Given that a rape victim was recently denied the medication at several local private pharmacies, challenging the UMC practice would seem like a timely and prudent project for your group.

Unknown said...

i have mentioned this in a response called "clarification" and have sent an email on to the groups