THURSDAY
February 18, 1999
Volume 105 • Issue 95 • 14 Pages
College Station, Texas
• Brazos Valley Museum's
‘Backyard Monsters' gives
visitors huge insight into the
world of insects.
PAGE 3
today’s issue
Toons 2
Wellborn speed limit 12
Friday’s issue
A&M should contribute funds
toward the relocation of the
railroad track near West Campus.
• A&M's men's basketball team loses to
Baylor shooting 18 percent in first half while
women fall as Kera Alexander leads in points
with 22.
Child or Choice?
ibbon cutting marks
ening ceremony of
nned Parenthood
ElinicinB-CS
BY MEREDITH HIGH!
The Battalion
\vo-hundred people attended Planned Parent
hood’s open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony
for its new Bryan clinic, which also drew about 100
protesters outside the clinic.
■pusan Nenney, vice president of communica
tions for Planned Parenthood of Houston and
Southeast Texas, said the new clinic, which will of
fer abortion services, is an improvement over the
previous clinic, which operated in Bryan for 24
years.
ericne*' ;i The new clinic has been open since December.
“This offers a more dignified atmosphere for
. 1 , health care, and the addition of a resource center,
mid Tuesdai i ie ip S us to better educate the community,”
:ord to 5-2. sh esaid.
• || Clinic director Dyann Santos said the event was
runs mi b|g success.
l||‘Thi s exceeded all our expectations,” she said,
e], he said. “We are really looking forward to providing this
and keep us in 'ggfV ieeFT6r co’ifffnunity.*
teeded togetseitf p i H . R e v. Howard Moody, a Baptist minister at
make a markar. j uc j son Memorial Church in Greenwich Village in
shed. New York City, spoke about the right of a woman
carcella settled: toihoose abortion.
ip a runintheip; “7be right to choose is God-given,” he said,
perfect innings. “Without choice, humans are robots.”
just got in as Moody said one of the geniuses of the 1973 Roe
s you get intoi v _ w/ade decision was that it recognized the con-
said. tinuum of the existence of the fetus.
2hris can throw when we say a fetus is a person?” he said.
Johnson said. “With each stage of development there’s more of
■e him start agar a moral question.”
he Aggies wide“ “The deification of the fetus is a furious heresy,”
half of thesa Moody said. “I’m preaching to the folks out there
nd baseman Sea (protesters) now. The right to life is really a right
he inning with to be born. Then our religion and traditions speak
need to third f to that issue.
te. Heaney then *‘Being born is never seen as anything but a gift,
lice fly by juni a gift of God,” he said. “Rights begin with birth.
1 Scarborough. Rights are not indisputable, even after birth. There
ed, scoring juijjs no freedom as fundamental as choosing the time
my Clark andfi to have one’s children. There is no economic pol-
n the sixth, icy as demeaning as that of poor women having to
&M tacked on d have a child in the name of theology that declares
e seventh, twoft the embryo has the constitutional rights of a hu-
ley single and t# man being.”
h. JrpMoody said he hopes there will be a time and
arborough, th; place where every woman will have access to the
ime this season,i knowledge and means of reproductive capacity.
striking oiii lw‘We need to hear from the religious communi-
ers CourtneyP ty,” he said. “Pontiffs, rabbis and teachers need to
right also saw splak out.”
wanted to see-'
li a game, and.: SEE qren House on Page 12.
u[bright out tw
“He threw the'
and Scarborouf
king ball well."
heschuk, Lindse
had three hits,^
Lindsey’s prod:"
the bottom oftM
he bottom of:
d,” Johnson said
production do" :
Wolunteer escorts provide support,
offer counseling to clinic patients
BY MEREDITH HIGHT planned to expand to offer ily afford to take c
Woman recounts tale of making
pro-life or pro-choice decision
The Battalion
[He straps on a blue vest
guard in the
iwer part haste and stands
parking lot. |
ihHe is a volunteer escort,
and his job is to provide sup-
- '-3 port for clients who arrive at
ice
the Bryan Planned Parent
hood Clinic, which will offer
abortion services, while pro
testers are present.
jyk^BHe is a clinic escort be-
4/|A U cause he believes in a
•V V Wonicln ’ s right to choose. He
believes fetuses do have a
moral standing, but they do
D GIFT ITEMS' not have the moral signifi-
CilUC CTMI ! cance of humans. Fetuses,
pflo olUKt* he said, and comatose hu-
iidisiomt. ausiK mans are on th e same plane
amcHAMBi as far as moral significance.
■ Gary Varner, an associate
professor of philosophy at
Texas A&M, volunteered his
services to Planned Parent-
. hood when he learned they
303 co#
BY I#
planned to expand
abortion services.
Varner said he anticipat
ed that the community
would not support the new
service.
“I thought in this com
munity, there would be a lot
of protesters,” he said. “It is
important for pro-choice
people to help out by being
escorts. This is something I
feel very strongly about.”
Varner said there are is
sues he writes about in phi
losophy that he is unsure of,
but he is certain of his pro-
choice stance.
“I feel quite confident in
my opinion about this,” he
said. “It’s very important
that the new clinic will soon
begin providing abortions
locally, because we have a
real apartheid system in the
country at present. Middle-
and upper-income women
who have cars and can eas
ily afford to take off work
could get to Austin or Hous
ton for an abortion, but low
er-income women can’t. To
me, it makes a lot more
sense to provide abortions
locally than to have women
go through with unwanted
pregnancies because they
can’t get to the service.”
In Varner’s two-hour es
cort training session.
Planned Parenthood repre
sentatives described what
escorting is like at clinics.
“Sometimes I feel a little
awkward because there are
no protesters,” he said. “But
given there will probably be
more protesters in the future,
it’s good to have a show of
support in the parking lot.”
Varner said the escorts
are necessary because clinic
staff cannot be present out
side to help women entering
the clinic.
see Escort on Page 2.
BY MEREDITH HIGHT
The Battalion
She left the day he broke a beer bottle
across her face, leaving her with 11 stitches.
That was two days after she confronted
her husband about the bruises she discov
ered on the back of her oldest son Julian’s
legs.
Julian, 10, and Juan, 9, share the same fa
ther. It was Lance, 5, whose father she was
married to for seven years and confronted
one July night.
She broke the door down, demanding to
know if her husband had “whupped him.”
He denied it.
This is the same man who told her he had
married her because she “was just a n r
slave to him.”
Ginger’s outlook on life does not mirror
the difficulties of her past. She smiles often
and laughs when she tells stories about her
boys.
Last March, Ginger had a miscarriage.
Later that same month, she discovered she
was pregnant.
The father, Francisco, wanted her to have
an abortion. She did not know what to do.
When she was three months pregnant.
she walked by the Brazos Valley Coalition
for Life, across the street from her duplex,
and met Lauren Donohue, executive direc
tor.
Donohue showed her pictures from a Life
magazine insert illustrating pictures of a fe
tus at early stages of development.
She was fascinated by it.
But she still did not know what she
should do.
A friend of Ginger’s, who recently had her
third abortion, took her to Houston so she
could have one. Somehow, they never end
ed up at the abortion clinic. Her friend took
her to the airport to watch the planes and
out to eat lunch.
When Ginger asked her friend where the
clinic was, her friend said she could not find
it.
Ginger thinks that was her friend’s way
of telling her that an abortion would not be
right, knowing how it had hurt her (the
friend).
“She has bad dreams,” Ginger said. “She
has black under her eyes. She’s sad. When
I look at her, I think I could have been in the
same position.”
see Ginger on Page 2.
PAGE 9
Enrollment
figures show
overall rise
BY AMANDA SMITH
The Battalion
Overall enrollment is higher
this Spring than it was the same
time last year, according to the Of
fice of Admissions and Records
figures.
This semester, 33,203 under
graduates are enrolled at A&M
compared to 32,099 in Spring
1998. Freshmen account for 6,851
of the population compared to
5,829 last Spring.
Junior and sophomore enroll
ments increased from last year,
with 6,821 sophomores and 8,526
juniors enrolled. The number of
seniors enrolled at A&M dropped
from 10,981 in Spring 1998 to
10,754 in Spring 1999.
The number of total graduate
students increased from 6,347 to
6,410. Graduate students consti
tute 16 percent of the student pop
ulation.
Karen Severn, an adviser in the
Office of Professional School Ad
vising (OPSA), said awareness of
professional school programs has
increased since the office was
founded seven years ago.
“Aggies have never had bad
records,” Severn said. “We are big
in helping students maximize
their potential as undergraduates.
It has always been the purpose of
our office to see what life is real
ly like as a professional.”
Texas A&M University Medical
School annually admits 64 new
students to its program.
Severn said 10 percent of A&M
graduates going to medical school
attend A&M, and 90 percent at
tend other medical schools.
Undergraduates at A&M apply
ing to medical and dental schools
have the highest acceptance rates
nationally and the second highest
in law school admissions.
The enrollment of the Colleges
of Agriculture, Business, Engi
neering, General Studies and Sci
ence increased from Spring 1998
to Spring 1999.
The College of Medicine
showed the largest increase from
Spring 1998 to Spring 1999, in
creasing enrollment from 300 to
335 students.
In minority enrollment, the
number of African-American and
Hispanic freshman students en
rolled at A&M decreased by 1 per
cent, with 956 African Americans
and 3,337 Hispanics.
Felicia Scott, interim director of
the Multicultural Services Depart
ment, said A&M must remain
committed to increasing diversity
on campus.
“By virtue of the mission of the
institution as a land-grant univer
sity, we must commit,” Scott said.
“As an institution striving to be in
the top rankings, we are gradual
ly preparing students to work in a
diverse work force.
“As a department, we do not
have an official function of re
cruitment, but we have been col
laborating with the Office of Ad
missions and Records,” Scott said.
White students make up 80
percent of the student body pop
ulation, increasing from 25,678
students in Spring 1998 to 26,712
students in 1999.
Females make up 38 percent of
the population, an increase of 1
percent from Spring 1998.
Enrollment of international stu
dents increased from 1,985 in
Spring 1998 to 2,052 in Spring
1999, making up 32 percent of the
population. Texas residents make
up 47 percent of the student pop
ulation, and nonresidents com
pose 21 percent.