Tribune Refuses to Run Anti-Abortion Insert

First, a press release from Pro-Life Wisconsin:

Marquette University’s Official Newspaper Again Rejects Pro-Life Advertising

The official newspaper of Marquette University, The Marquette Tribune, has again refused to run pro-life advertising. Previously, in March of this year, The Marquette Tribune rejected Pro-Life Wisconsin’s educational ads about emergency contraception, on the basis that the words “chemical abortion” were too strong for the publication.

“Pro-Life Wisconsin has been recently working with Human Life Alliance to place educational inserts about abortion in college newspapers,” said Virginia Zignego, communications director for Pro-Life Wisconsin. “It is absolutely crucial to show Marquette students the horror of abortion. Why would the official newspaper at a Catholic college consistently reject pro-life ads? Last time I checked, abortion was not sanctioned by the Catholic Church.”

The 12-page inserts, called Trapped. . . , are a compelling pro-life resource designed to educate people about abortion. The solid pro-life content challenges individuals to re-think their ideas about abortion, premarital sex, and the humanity of the unborn child.

“Human Life Alliance’s pro-life advertising supplement, Trapped . . . was refused by The Marquette Tribune for the following objections: Accurate description of abortion methods, photo depicting an in utero corrective procedure, and an explanation of the birth control/abortion connection,” said Jillian Roemer, distribution coordinator for Human Life Alliance.

The inserts were accepted by Marquette’s independent student newspaper, The Warrior.

“One of our nine Core Values at The Warrior is to cherish Marquette’s Catholic identity, and we are pleased to have this opportunity to do so,” said Katie Wycklendt, business manager at The Warrior.

An explanation of the peper’s decision had recently come from the Tribune.

From: Student Media [mailto:stumedia@marquette.edu]
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 1:55 PM
To: Jillian Roemer
Cc: Wierzbicki, Kaye
Subject: RE: Insertion Request - Human Life Alliance - Attn: Kelly

Jillian,

Myself [sic] and the sales director have fully reviewed the content for the Human Life Alliance’s “Trapped” Supplement. We have no concerns running most of the material (particularly as it is medically cited), however there are a few images/descriptions that, due to the nature of our readership and the policies set forth by our University, would be inappropriate to print. Those materials are:

p 4, “Abortion Methods” article in its entirety p 7, The image of a doctor performing an in-utero procedure (upper lefthand corner) p10, “What about birth control” article, bottom half of page

There are several different options that will still enable us to run the remainder of the content. The first is to somehow remove those images and articles from the insertion and run the remainder as one insertion (price TBD). If those individual articles and pictures cannot be removed from the given pages, if it would be possible to break the insertion down into individual pages, we can run one article per paper over the period of several papers (ex: Week 1, run the first page, Week 2, run the second page) as individual ads rather than a supplement and simply skip over the pages listed above. Once again, the material listed above would not be included.

Let me know how these options sound.

Thanks!

- Kelly Dunnmon
Advertising Director, MU Student Media
414.288.1739
student.media@marquette.edu

The organization that produced the ad (which was not Pro-Life Wisconsin but rather Human Life Alliance), responded as follows:

From: Jillian Roemer [mailto:jroemer@humanlife.org]
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 3:58 PM
To: Student Media
Subject: RE: Insertion Request - Human Life Alliance - Attn: Kelly

Kelly,

The options you have provide are not feasible or reasonable. Exactly what University policies are you enacting to censor our material? Our executive director has instructed me to obtain the actual written policy to which you are referring. Please send me a copy via mail or tell me where I can find it online.

In regard to your specific concerns:

P.4 “Abortion Methods” - These are accurate descriptions. The purpose of us running an ad in your paper is tell people the truth about abortion. To not include these descriptions is a complete censorship of our message. We are trying to encourage people to choose options other than abortion, and we are willing to pay you advertising fees to do this. I cannot believe that any paying customer would submit to censorship.

Picture of doctor performing in-utero procedure - I am not sure why you oppose that picture. That is not an abortion picture. The boy whose hand is seen grasping the finger of the doctor is alive today. His name is Samuel and he needed a spina bifida corrective procedure at 21 weeks in utero.

P.10 “What about Birth Control?” We state that hormonal contraceptives have the capability to cause an abortion. This is true and is cited on page ten. The pharmaceutical companies do not hide this information. What is your concern in regard to this article?

I ask that you reconsider accepting our advertising supplement as an insert in the Tribune. Our information is cited and accurate.

We look forward to working with you in placing our “Trapped. . .” insert in your paper in its entirety.

Jillian

Jillian Roemer
Distribution Coordinator
Human Life Alliance
2855 Anthony Lane S., Ste B7
Minneapolis, MN 55418
Phone: (651) 484-1040
Fax: (612) 789-0253
www.humanlife.org

There are two alternative ways to interpret this. It is either liberal bias, or it is an absurd aversion to publishing anything that might offend anybody.

Readers can view the insert, and decide for themselves whether there is anything really out of line here. We think there obviously isn’t.

Just a month ago, the Tribune rejected an ad urging college women to be wary of emergency contraception.

Interestingly, the ad appeared in several student papers across the state, including The Badger Herald, the UW-Superior Stinger and student papers from UW-Platteville and UW-Milwaukee.

So it seems that secular state universities were more willing to print the ad than Marquette.

The same appears to be true of this insert. A spokeswoman from Pro-Life Wisconsin told us that other papers are going to accept the insert, but declined to name the papers, saying that doing so could lead to censorship attempts on those campuses.

Which says a lot about supposed “pro-choice” advocates.