Since we’re in the midst of an election year, the constant hum surrounding abortions and contraception has evolved into a general brouhaha. Why any politician or political group invests time in overturning Roe vs. Wade is beyond me, when the economy is still far from “fixed,” our educational system falls short, and campaign finance laws regulations are flouted. That, coupled with the increasingly uncomfortable abortion restrictions that have been cropping up, just shows how important taking note of this anniversary is and paying attention to reproductive rights issues in general.

There is a reason that organizations such as NARAL (National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Actions League) Pro-Choice America still exist. Far from being vestigial, groups like these take on current issues, including, but not limited to, abortion rights, birth control and general women’s issues. To my mind, it seems as though increasing abortion restrictions is an attempt to impose unnecessary, and anachronistic, restrictions on personal behavior.

Abortion, birth control and sexual health are all private issues (I’m looking at you, Rick Santorum. Googled yourself lately?). Further restricting or outlawing abortion will not “make America great again” or bring back manifest destiny or legislate a moral utopia into existence. Prohibition would only bring problems, ranging from the physical to the philosophical. I don’t like to throw around potent words like liberty, but such an act would be a grave blow to personal liberty if there ever was one. Giving up a certain amount of liberty in exchange for social welfare is logical. No such exchange is implied in outlawing abortion. When presidential hopefuls say they would “overturn Roe v. Wade,” I have to wonder if they have considered all of the ramifications.

While American women do not have to resort to back-alley abortions (nor will they anytime soon), women did die of “back-alley” abortions in the United States, and still do in some parts of the world. According to the BBC, some 10,000 women a year die in Nigeria as a result of illegal and unsafe abortions (“Saving Nigerians from risky abortions,” 2008). While Nigeria and the United States are not precisely comparable, the issue remains. No one is a fan of abortion, and there are better ways to reduce its existence than prohibition. Let’s promote accurate sex education, personal responsibility and birth control, shall we? Break out the cucumbers and condoms; I’m ready.

Any discussion surrounding abortion rights mainly carries implications for women. Feminism, at least in my experience, is ironically similar to presidential hopeful Rick Perry in that it elicits strong responses while being almost too easy to mock. I myself am sometimes wary of describing myself as a feminist because I don’t want to come off as self-righteous or, as the case may be, a radical gender-separatist.

At a party I went to a few weeks ago, I was discussing feminism with a group of college guys I barely knew. One of them asked me if I was a lesbian because “they’re the same, dude.” I must have put on a really good angry feminist face because the topic quickly shifted away from advanced sexuality theory. I am not thin-skinned, I have a boyfriend, and I have been known to laugh at sexist jokes. But I am still rankled when people treat feminism like a radical ideology or a joke, especially an unfunny joke. Yes, those guys were just joking, but when that flippancy extends to the political arena, which it apparently has, there is cause for concern. Restriction on abortion rights is usually framed as a moral issue. But respect for women, or lack thereof, is at the heart of the issue. The anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, even the 39th, deserves notice until abortion rights become an unquestioned part of the status quo.

When a sophomore asked for Siri’s help in locating an abortion clinic, “She directed me to abortion [alternatives] in St. Louis but stated that it was a clinic, when in fact it was Birthright St. Louis, a clinic that helps women find positive solutions to avoid abortions.”

The program’s response to why Siri is against abortion is, “I just am.” If you ask Siri where you can obtain emergency contraception, she will give you a definition—though it seems unlikely that you would ask for emergency contraception without knowing what it is.

There is no lack of abortion resources in St. Louis—one of the three St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinics is less than five miles away in the nearby Central West End. Siri gives similar unaccommodating instructions to iPhone users in New York and Washington D.C., and in other cities around the country.

These anti-choice organizations, or “crisis pregnancy centers,” are created to look like health clinics, but in fact will not provide women with the services they requested, and can ultimately be harmful to the women’s decision-making process.

Junior Sally Cohen, who worked at NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri in St. Louis this past summer, believes “everyone should have access to comprehensive information about their reproductive health. It’s outrageous that a program with the very purpose of serving as a personal assistant falls short in that area.”

Women’s reproductive health is disregarded and compromised too often. The Department of Health and Human Services only recently decided to recommend that health insurance plans cover birth control under preventive care. Plans beginning on or after August 1, 2012 will cover birth control and other preventive services. More than half of Viagra prescriptions, however, received health insurance within weeks of hitting the U.S. market in 1998.

A spokeswoman for Apple told the New York Times that Siri’s values were unintentional and were not meant to offend anyone; she promised that changes will be made to the final product. According to an MSNBC survey, one in 10 of the 30,000 U.S.-based cellphone users has an iPhone, which means that Siri is imposing her conservative moral compass on a large number of people.

College students rely on the convenience of their cell phones to provide accurate information instantly. The fact that Siri appears to be a venue for reliable assistance and inquiry while harboring judgmental opinions about women’s autonomy for choice is troubling. It is also troubling that after spending $200, the device that you carry in your pocket may conflict with your personal political views.

Granted, Siri is just a search engine, and Washington University students are intelligent enough to find information through other avenues. Though senior Carrie Kinkaid, who worked as a political intern at Planned Parenthood this summer, has a point: “It is unreasonable that Siri will provide locations of escort services, but will not provide information on abortion clinics, a legal service in most states. It is not Siri’s place, or Apple’s place, to provide subtle commentary about reproductive health issues.”

However, Siri is far from a prude. “She” will refer you to an escort service, if you’re so inclined, or steer you toward Viagra. Clearly, Siri’s the personal assistant of Don Draper’s fondest dreams: efficient, female and unfazed by a raging male libido. She is, of course, limited by the resources she has to work with: sites such as Yahoo, Yelp and Wikipedia, among others. Those sites don’t just create themselves—they are created by users and as a whole, reflect social preferences. Like it or not, we still live in a society that is far from equal when it when it comes to gender. I don’t have a problem with Viagra, but if I have to see ads about old men and their flaccid members, then I also want information about issues with actual social impact.

As Jennifer Dalven, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom Project, pointed out, “The Siri issue is a symptom of a much larger problem. Why is it that we can have ads on TV for Viagra but talking about where a woman can get birth control or an abortion is taboo?” Planned Parenthood has been under fire since its inception, even though most of its services are associated with family planning services other than abortion. To be fair, there are ads for birth control pills on TV. Many of those TV ads depict women who have already fulfilled their reproductive quotas, attempting to soften the implications of birth control with family-friendly images.

Abortion is not some obscure women’s issue, nor is it exclusively a women’s issue. According to studies by the Guttmacher Institute, 22 percent of all pregnancies end in abortion. Every year, 2 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 44 have an abortion. So why isn’t there more dialogue about abortion and birth control, unencumbered by moralism? Yes, it’s not as though Siri is the only source of information for iPhone users. Any women who finds herself saddled with an unplanned pregnancy (which describes nearly half of the pregnancies in the U.S.), could simply Google “Planned Parenthood” and go from there. But the Siri glitch is troubling in that it is only a reflection of the many difficulties many women face when dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. When information, even in the age of the Internet, is more difficult to obtain than it should be, it does not only create a barrier. It sends a message that women’s issues are not worth the dialogue. Unless of course you’re a conservative political candidate, in which case the point is not to supply information, but to eat away at the options that already exist. Whether you term abortion a sin or an option, it is a legal, safe choice. If we as a society truly want to empower women, we should put more effort into promoting dialogue about women’s issues, from abortion to adoption to birth control.

Apple will undoubtedly fix Siri’s glitch. This isn’t about one company being politically correct, however. It’s about creating a greater dialogue about women’s issues because clearly, we need it when even technology continues to reflect human bias.

The escort program is not affiliated with the University and is designed to protect women who are walking from the parking lot to the clinic entrance from abortion opponents protesting outside.

The program was first brought to the University by Students for Choice a few years ago, but the group had disbanded until now.

Seniors Kate and Carolyn, whose last names have been withheld for security reasons, were involved in Students for Choice as freshmen. They decided to bring back the escort-training program upon returning senior year from studying abroad.

Escorts are told to keep their identities hidden from abortion protesters.

Training is provided by a representative from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL Pro-Choice America), which conducts 90-minute sessions with trainees on how to deal effectively and safely with protesters.

“Don’t engage with them; don’t let them know your name; don’t touch them because it can be construed as assault,” Kate said. “Always go in pairs; report any suspicious activity.”

This isn’t always easy, as there is almost always a crowd of at least 20 protesters outside the entrances to Planned Parenthood in St. Louis and Hope Clinic in Granite City, Ill.

“There’s a lot of hatred around those parts,” Carolyn said. “Things can get pretty heated.”

Kate and Carolyn told stories of protesters who devoted their entire lives to the abortion-opponent movement and bring their entire families to clinic protests, including young children.

The protesters are especially brutal to black women who come into the clinic. The two described one woman who would shout “Who needs the KKK when you’re lynching your own babies?” every time a black woman walked in.

“I’m a little nervous because I’ve never really dealt with people screaming in my face before,” said junior Lauren, who will escort for the first time next month. “Also, it’s really easy to get sued because the protesters have a lot more resources at hand than we do.”

The students are also counseled on how to talk to the patients. They are encouraged not to make the conversation about the patient, but to make small talk about neutral things like the weather.

Carolyn adds that the escorts can act as a means of outlet for the patients.

“They’re grateful to have someone there to sort of make fun of the protesters with,” she said. “Some women get angry and agitated toward them, and some just try to block everything out.”

For Kate and Carolyn, the program isn’t about trying to gain support for abortion rights, but rather protecting the right of these women to make their own choices.

“I’m from the Northeast, so I was truly shocked the first time I did this seeing how difficult it is for these women in the Midwest,” Kate said. “People don’t realize how big of an issue it is and how threatened it is in our country.”

“There’s a huge anti-abortion outcry, with people who are really loud and visible,” said junior Melissa, who participated in the training session. “It’s important to have a presence on the other side doing something that’s practical, rather than just holding signs.”

Editor’s note: If you would like to get involved in the program send an email to wustl.escort.training@gmail.com

In an attempt to restrict federal funding of abortions, the provision in question would prohibit federal health care coverage of abortions except in cases of “forcible rape.” This would be a change from the Hyde Amendment, the current language on federal funding of abortions, which includes an exception for rape and does not specify that the rape must be “forcible.”

The bill, called the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” was proposed by U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) and has 173 cosponsors in the House.

After the provision sparked a media firestorm, Republicans pledged to drop the word “forcible” from the bill, Politico reported recently. But the word was still in the bill as of Sunday night.

“Rape is more than forcible rape—you don’t have to have physical marks for it to be rape,” said junior Brett Jordan, who is restarting the abortion-rights student group Students for Choice. “The government shouldn’t be able to say that something that happened against your will is your problem to deal with.”

Supporters of the bill assert that this is not its intention. Rather, they say, the term “forcible rape” is meant to eliminate loopholes in the pre-existing law that make it easier for women to get federal funding for abortions through programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

“Basically, as a libertarian feminist, I believe that the role of the government to provide services, any services, for any medical reasons, should be limited in and of itself,” junior Becca Craig said. “For me, the abortion issue is not about defining life or defining rape. It’s about defining what the government should provide for its constituents. It’s not a rape issue—it’s a funding issue.”

Restrictions on abortions already exist in Missouri, where women under 18 cannot receive an abortion without parental consent or a court-mandated order.

Clinics that provide abortions are required to ask women if they would like to see an ultrasound, tell them that the fetus may feel pain and offer anesthesia for the fetus.

A 24-hour rule currently requires women who seek abortions in Missouri to come in one day before the abortion is performed to give them a day to consider their decision. But because there are few clinics in Missouri that provide abortions, many women have to take time off work and travel long distances for the procedure, which may make it difficult to return for a second day.

According to Jordan, the provision would hit women on Medicaid especially hard. These women may not be able to afford an abortion on their own, and these funding cuts would make it almost impossible for them to obtain one.

The provision would also affect women in the military, because their health care is also supported by government funding.

“People in the government aren’t the ones dealing with the consequences; these women are,” Jordan said. “Politics shouldn’t get in the way of health care and of women making their own decisions.”

Sports are supposed to be what ultimately unites us as a nation; I for one have gathered with friends of all political affiliations to watch the big game year after year. While we each have our favorite teams, we are all united by the game and the fact that for a few hours all we need to concern ourselves with is who wins and who loses; we get caught up in the game and almost all other troubles just slip away. It gives us a nice little break from the chaos of our everyday lives. In addition, Super Bowl Sunday is partly known for its mostly lighthearted advertisements; who doesn’t look forward to seeing what wacky marketing ploys various corporations have in store for us this weekend? A serious political message has no place in this, as it just does not fit the tone of the afternoon.

CBS, the network airing the game and thus responsible for all advertisements, has claimed, according to the Huffington Post on Jan. 25, that “there was nothing political or controversial about the ad.” This is about as ignorant as one can get; I cannot think of a more blatant political or controversial message than one taking sides in the abortion debate. If the script did not catch their attention, why didn’t the use of Tebow make it clearer? Tim Tebow has a lot of star power due to his run as quarterback at Florida, and people are going to listen. In fact, I have to wonder if CBS is not trying to advance an agenda of its own—this is not the first time their actions involving Super Bowl ads have sparked controversy. According to that same Huffington Post article, CBS used its internal policies to justify not airing an advertisement by a mainstream church, the United Church of Christ, that advocated tolerance and openness toward gays and lesbians back in 2004, and various news sources state that the network has rejected a pro-gay marriage ad this year as well.

I can understand the network’s policy against ads on controversial subjects, as long as it is enforced evenly. The kind of hypocrisy that CBS has shown is inexcusable; if a potentially controversial liberal advertisement is rejected on the basis of being political or controversial, a conservative ad should be, too.  While I love politics just a bit more than the average person, even I need a break from it now and then. Freedom of speech is one of our country’s basic principles, but can we please keep political agendas out of our sporting events?

Charles is a freshman in Art & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at charles.herrera@wustl.edu.

Washington University offers emergency contraceptives to its students. However, unlike most sellers the University does not offer Plan B, an emergency contaceptive, to everyone. Student Health Services (SHS) dispenses emergency contraception only to women.

Plan B, or the “morning after pill,” is a contraceptive that a woman can take to prevent pregnancy after having sex. Although it is not as effective at preventing pregnancy as condoms are, Plan B is 95 percent effective when taken within 24 hours of having unprotected sex and 89 percent effective when taken within 72 hours. It can be taken up to five days after sexual activity, although the pregnancy prevention rates become lower.

The medication is available from SHS on campus at a discounted price of $30. It is also available at places like Schnucks and Walgreen’s for $40 to $50.

Emergency contraceptives are available to both women and men at local pharmacies, but only to women at SHS.

Peer institutions like Northwestern University provide emergency contraception to any student who wants to pick it up, regardless of gender.

SHS staff maintain that the primary reason for denying emergency contraception to men is their general policy of giving medicine directly to the people who will use it.

“It’s a medicine that’s indicated for prevention of pregnancy in females, so we like to dispense medicine to the people that the medicine is intended for,” said Melissa Ruwitch, the assistant director of SHS and chief of health promotion services.

Junior Maria Santos, president of the Committee Organized for Rape Education (C.O.R.E.), does not agree with the policy.

“It takes away really important options to people who are in situations that are clearly stressful,” Santos said.

Pamela Summers, the executive director for NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri, an organization dedicated to protecting women’s right to choose, also criticized the policy.

“If you have some man who wants to take the initiative to go and get it, why shouldn’t you give it to him?” Summers said. “It is a surprise to me that Wash. U. would not have one of the most proactive and sophisticated policies around, because that is what we would expect Wash. U. to have.”

But senior Jimmy Cox, co-president of Men Organized for Rape Education (M.O.R.E.), agrees with University policy.

“Men will never be using it and they’d always be getting it for someone else, and if that’s the case, I don’t see why the woman can’t get it herself,” Cox said.

Cox also raised the point that men could coerce their girlfriends into taking emergency contraception.

“It can just as easily be abused that men could force women to take it, so I do think that the risk outweighs the benefit,” Cox said.

Washington University officials have apologized to Saint Louis University for linking the Jesuit university to an abortion program for physicians.

The University listed Saint Louis University (SLU) as collaborating with the Washington University School of Medicine and Planned Parenthood in the Family Planning Fellowship, which teaches medical students how to perform abortions.

The University administration quickly extended an apology to SLU and made changes to the program’s Web site after a representative from SLU notified the University of the error on Sept. 18, according to medical school spokeswoman Joni Westerhouse.

“We sincerely regret any problems this caused,” Westerhouse wrote in a statement to Student Life.

SLU noticed the error on the fellowship’s Web site that linked the Jesuit institution with the fellowship’s mission and research.

The program’s Web site originally stated, “Washington University’s School of Medicine is collaborating with Planned Parenthood—St. Louis Region and St. Louis University to accomplish the goals of the Family Planning Fellowship.”

SLU officials denied even knowing about the abortion program and said they were shocked to see that the institution was mentioned.

Two Washington University faculty members involved in the program are listed as professors at SLU. Jeff Fowler, associate vice president for marketing and communications at SLU, confirmed that the professors mentioned do not teach anything concerning abortion at the Catholic institution.

Fowler could not be reached for comment.

“When WU’s fellowship program began in 2007, SLU was a possible resource for fellows who wished to seek a master’s degree in public health, but there was no established collaboration or partnership between the programs,” Westerhouse said in the statement.

The University’s error prompted eight people to stand outside Barnes-Jewish Hospital in protest on Tuesday, reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

According to the University’s statement, the fellowship’s mission is to “develop specialists focused on research, teaching and clinical practice in contraception and abortion” and provide “comprehensive training in contraception and family planning. The two-year fellowship is one of 20 offered by top medical schools in the nation.”

Every year, the program accepts one licensed physician interested in family planning as a fellow.

The program’s Web site states that the University is one of 20 participating schools in the fellowship. Others include Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, the University of Chicago and Columbia University.

I read it, and thought it was ridiculous—the definition of pregnancy we’re taught in health class in, like, fifth grade is that pregnancy occurs when an egg is fertilized and implanted in a woman’s uterus; contraception prevents both fertilization and implantation, ergo with contraception there is no pregnancy, ergo there can be no pregnancy aborted. Yes, there is a religious argument that contraception is immoral because the purpose of sex is reproduction and contraception alters that purpose, but that contraception is explicitly an abortifacient? No.

I also thought, “this will never get any traction.” Aside from the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, both of whom define pregnancy as I have just done and consequently distinguish between contraception and abortion, there’s also the National Organization for Women (NOW), Planned Parenthood and innumerable other women’s lobbies operating on the national, state and local levels. I know the Bush Administration caters to the religious right, but, having worked for an energy lobbyist all summer, I also know the power of a pissed off lobbyist. I trusted that the issue would be dropped before it ever made it to the policy level.

Well, apparently I was wrong.

President Bush has just issued a regulatory change in HHS policy allowing health care providers to define what constitutes abortion, to the inclusion of many forms of contraception now on the market (for example, oral contraceptive pills, patches, IUDs, etc). The effect of this change is that those health care providers can now refuse, under federal law, to provide patients with access to contraception. The Weldon and Church Amendments protect the right of physicians and pharmacists not to participate in or facilitate abortion or abortive procedures; by allowing for an independent classification of what constitutes abortion, the HHS has effectively extended that protection to cover the refusal to provide contraception.

Why is this a big deal? Well, leaving aside arguments on reproductive rights, which I’m sure many others will get into, the fact cannot be escaped that this policy is discriminatory. Defining discriminatory as “manifesting partially” (this is textbook), all negative consequences are visited upon women; there is no talk of policy or legislation limiting access to, say, vasectomies (arguably the male equivalent of an IUD), or erectile dysfunction drugs (which similarly promote “unnatural” sex and can facilitate relations outside of wedlock). This policy targets women and women only.

It also seriously jeopardizes women’s access to adequate healthcare. Because, while contraceptives do prevent pregnancy, they are also used to treat any number of women’s health conditions. Oral contraceptive pills, for example, are used to treat recurrent ovarian cysts, problems with the tissue and lining of the uterus (endometriosis and adenomyosis, for example), irregular bleeding, painful menstruation and more. Use of OCPs has further been shown to reduce the risk of certain cancers by up to 50 percent. To deny access to medication because of what amounts in these cases to a reproductive side effect—an effect that is completely independent from the primary purpose of the prescription, which is the treatment of the women’s health condition—is outrageous.

A 15-year-old girl, sexually inactive, with ovarian cysts, now might not be able to treat them. A 37-year-old woman, married, might now have to suffer intense pain and fainting once a month, because the pharmacist in her small town has reservations.

The comment period for this policy ends Sept. 25, meaning that unless enough of a public outcry is voiced to HHS, the policy change will be active thereafter. If you agree that this policy is discriminatory, if you support not even reproductive rights but equal rights and a universal right to healthcare, please, be part of that outcry.

To find out more on the issue, and to find out how you can contact HHS to voice your opinion, please visit www.ppaction.org/ppaction/home.html.