tl19900503_000 "Vol. 85 No. 13 ""Required Reading"" May 3, 1990 e W Tb.)__t� Towsono Published weekly by the students of Towson State University, Ethics Forum explores abortion by Tracey Brown Managing Editor In the seven years since its inception, the University's Ethics ;Forum has explored some weighty issues. But this year the forum broke new ground, addressing its most controversial topic to date -abortion. ""The purpose of the forum is to make students aware of ethical issues and to prepare them to deal with ethical issues,"" said Marion Hoffman, dean of Student Develop-ment. ""There were quite a few clergy members on the committee that made the topic choice this year and they suggested abortion to me as a topic that would be very impor-tant for students."" The forum, held last Wednes-day, was sponsored by the office of Student Development and drew more than 100 people from the community, as well as facul-ty, staff and students. Struc-tured to provide maximum time for open discus-sion, he colloquium was broken down into blocks of time in which the audi-ence listened to speakers. watched skits, and participated in small group discussions. ""Unlike the forums we've done in the past we really stressed tolerance for this issue. We didn't want people to be polarized. The forum isn't a place to come and simply stress your own opinion -- it's a place to come and listen and learn,"" said Hoffman. the Maryland Commission For Women. Of the 107 people who participated in the forum only 11 were male students and many of the people in attendance stressed their disappointment at the lack of male students present. ""In general there wasn't as large of a student turn-out as we had hoped for, but there was in. espec-ially poor respone i;'te :..r male students,"" said Hoffman. Dave Kraus, Student Government As-sociation vice-president, said that his small group discussions confronted the issue of male rights in a woman's decision to have an abortion. ""It's the responsi-bility of the man and the woman from the beginning. I'm not sure yet whet-her or not the final decision should be made by the woman completely,"" said Kraus. ""Men think that they should have rights in the decision, but how many men are here to talk about the issue?"" A, said Tara Murray, SGA senator. Many of the men who came from the faculty and corn-munity, however, expressed a feel-ing of being excluded from the decision-making process. ""I think en are being told that it isn't our issue,"" said Mark Mc- tOko Elreath of the Speech and Mass Communi-cation department. The group watched attentively as a skit performed by various members of the student body, Etfaculty, and staff unveiled many of the more pressing , personal issues a woman faces when deciding whet- 0 her to have an abortion. The drama centered Although the small group discus-sions tried to steer clear of larger more polarizing issues, such as legislative matters, they did manage to explore a ga-mut of topics from the validity of adoption as an alternative to abortion to parents' rights in a minor's decision to abort. ""This is a hot topic that few people are lukewarm about. I was impressed by the civil discussion. The same people who can be zealous about this issue were able to sit down and learn from one another,"" said Dorothy Siegel, vice-president of Student Services. Past forum topics have included euthanasia, in-vitro fertiliza-tion, business ethics, media ethics, cheating in college, and racism, but few have the controversial history abortion has. ""The abortion issue has magnetized the attention of the American public to the point where it has become the political issue to contend with,"" said Lisa Carreno, executive director of around a young college-age woman who found herself unex-pectedly pregnant. In the course of the skit she must confront the opinions of her parents and her boyfriend and try to come to a decision she feels comfortable with. in,"" said Kraus. see FORUM, page 2 considered the impact of abortion on the family as a whole. I had always thought of it as an individual or personal decision and not the one that an entire family would take part ""I carne away from the forum with a new thought. I had never"" Her father announces, ""No, Michelle you will not have an abortion,"" while her boyfriend says, ""Why can't we deal with it by getting rid of the problem."" "
