The Student Assembly debated Resolution 77, which would require student organizations to make their events accessible to people with disabilities.

Matt Connolly '99 criticizes the rhetoric of a recent guest column that labeled pro-life activists as "anti-choice extremists."

While many have hailed the passage of health care reform in the House (H.R. 3692), much anger remains after the passage of a last-minute amendment, the Stupak Amendment. Pushed for heavily by Catholic bishops, this amendment greatly restricts the use of federal funding for abortion.

While one obviously does not have to be Catholic or even religious to oppose abortion, Catholics, other Christians (including this Lutheran) and many other religious people were concerned that they may end up funding abortions with their taxes in flagrant contradiction of their religious beliefs.

To the Editor:

Re: “Women: Bearing the Brunt Of Health Care Reform,” Opinion, Nov. 11

The Stupak Amendment to the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 is inaccurately characterized and described in this column. First, Hyde Amendment would not apply to AAHCA. The Hyde Amendment, which has been in place since 1976, only applies to appropriations from the Health and Human Services budget. On the most basic level, Hyde protects tax dollars that fund Medicaid from going to abortion — and politicians understood that this amendment was limited to the HHS budget, and that’s why they bothered drafting the Stupak Amendment in the first place.

If you walk along the path that crosses the Arts Quad from the libraries to between Lincoln and Goldwin Smith Halls, you will notice there are six small posters attached to stakes anchored in the ground.

The posters, clearly made by a pro-life organization, contain images of zygotes and fetuses and are accompanied by text about the image. For instance, the first one walking from the libraries is a picture of a zygote with words next to it that state:

"Hi I am Elena! Watch me grow!! I might be just 30 hours old, but I already have 46 of what my doctors call chromosomes making up my special DNA! A person's a person, no matter how small."

To the Editor:

Re: “The Apolitical Pill,” Opinion, April 7.

There are a few corrections that I would like to make to the editorial on the “non-incendiary” changes that President Obama has made regarding abortion. The editor called the reversal of the “global gag rule,” or Mexico City Policy, notable — however, research posted on Jill Stanek’s column on WorldNetDaily.com reveals that reversing this policy actually only provided funding to five organizations. Furthermore, Stanek cites the funds gained as “paltry” at best, with International Planned Parenthood gaining $5 million when “IPPF’s London corporate headquarters alone made $120.5 million in 2007.”

“Look to your right, and look to your left,” Karen Shablin, a deeply pro-life activist from Feminist For Life, instructed her audience. “These people [may not] be here if their mother had exercised her choice.”

Feminist For Life is an organization aimed at continuing the efforts of early feminists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton to seek practical solutions to systematically eliminate the root causes for women to have abortions, according to the group’s website.

Shablin believes that abortions occur because society fails to meet the needs of women, and there is an urgent need to develop a holistic, women-centered solution because “women deserve better than abortion.”

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday told U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic who supports abortion rights, that Catholic politicians have a duty to protect life "at all stages of its development."

Pelosi is the first top Democrat to meet with Benedict since the election of Barack Obama, who won a majority of the American Catholic vote despite differences with the Vatican on abortion.

The Vatican released the pope's remarks to Pelosi, saying Benedict spoke of the church's teaching "on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death." That is an expression often used by the pope when expressing opposition to abortion.

Press coverage of the numerous changes that Barack Obama has made since taking office has overlooked one change that makes a welcome and swift departure from the policies of the previous administration: the revocation of the so-called “global gag rule.”

The rule made it impossible for federal funding to go to international groups that provide abortions or even provide abortion information to the women they serve. It was first passed by President Regan in 1984, overruled by President Clinton in 1993, and put back in place by the second President Bush as one of his first acts as president in 2001.

Recession. Evangelical. Abortion. Large Hadron Collider. What do these words have to do with each other (outside of the triviality the word “real” is spelled using the first letter of each word?) Sure, words have been tossed about in the news of late, but what does the world’s largest (and non-functional at the moment) particle accelerator have to do with “hot button” political buzz-words? Absolutely nothing. And that’s precisely the point.