Oracle Online

First, we were troubled by the exclusion of the St. Paul location of Planned Parenthood, located on Ford Parkway, just minutes from the Hamline campus. This facility offers a full range of professional medical help, including pregnancy and STI testing and follow-up, annual exams and abortion services. A respected organization so close to campus, which is affordable and accessible to our students should also have been highlighted in your article.

In addition, we were concerned by two organizations that were highlighted. Both Birthright and Highland Life Care Center are “crisis pregnancy centers,” not clinics. While it was responsible for the Oracle to note that Birthright is not a clinic, and does not offer abortion as an option to their clients, you did not provide the same information about Highland Life-Care Center. In fact, Highland is referred to as a “clinic” in the article.

Our concern is that “crisis pregnancy centers” like these dissuade women from learning all of their options, which legally include abortion. In some cases, centers like these use fear, incorrect health information and confusion to persuade women from seeking abortions. These centers commonly choose a name and location similar to an actual clinic to confuse and mislead women, and may even give false information about the health and psychological effects of abortion. In fact, these centers rarely employ trained medical professionals.

In our opinion, young women in crisis need all of their reproductive health care options presented to them in a professional and medically competent way in order to make the decision that best corresponds with their situation.

We hope that in the future the Oracle presents a more balanced view so that the student body has the full picture regarding their vital reproductive health care choices.

-Sara Thome & Kate Hannaher
Law Students for Choice
Hamline University School of Law

Student body needs to participate in HUSC

This letter came to me pretty much on a whim. The reason I say this is because while there have been many things that get me going around here, I read the recent election issue and decided that now was as good a time as any to give my opinion on current events.

As an outgoing member of HUSC [actually every student can come in and vote during GA (General Assembly), but only on non-roll call votes] I thought now would be a good time to give my opinion about what we as a student body should be doing.

As a mere representative I found it difficult to shape HUSC in a manner that I thought would make it the body everyone wishes it to be.

Now you can blame my failure on everything from establishment politics to parliamentary procedure but that is not the case; instead I would say the blame really lies in the student body as a whole. I say this with the knowledge that I share the blame just as much as everyone else and particularly since I was in HUSC.

I was reading the paper today and saw that while two out of the four people in the “Speakout” section would vote, really only one was doing it for the reasons we are all supposed to vote.

This is disturbing. I don’t think a successful government can be run when only 25 percent of its constituency participates. While the “Speakout” section is the furthest thing from a scientific poll, it does, however, capture what I think the mood around campus is.

A mood of apathy surrounds HUSC and that’s a problem. HUSC should be a place where people come together and solve problems on this campus or at the very least, present these problems to the proper people who can fix them. That is the role that student government should have, not just collecting and distributing money.

Whether you like it or not, or even know it, HUSC is the body the administration comes to to talk to the students.

For instance, the heads of the strategic planning process have been to our meetings several times. Dean Sickbert is at most of our meetings, as is Kelly Krebs, so if people on campus have problems with the administration then HUSC is the place you are supposed to go.

We have people on the Academic Affairs Committee as well as other committees, not just those dedicated to funding events and organizations on campus. That is the duty that HUSC is trying to fulfill but which is impossible because the student body refuses to participate in their government.

While we are more than capable of giving out money we would all like to do more. We table generally once a week in front of Sorin or in the Klas so come by and talk to us if you have any questions, comments, or concerns and we will try our best to satisfy your problems.

In addition, if you feel so moved, our e-mail is husc@hamline.edu and the GA meets every Tuesday at 11:20a.m.

A democratic government is only effective if everyone participates in it.

Gerry Wallace ’08