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Abortion
(Continued from Page 3)
dorm the rest of the year. She gave bir-
th to her baby the week of final exams
in April.
Her choice was not, however, based
on religious or ethical considerations,
but on an emotional feeling of curiosity
and fear that an abortion would end in a
complication.
"I was just too scared to get an abor-
tion," said Tania.
When she first discussed her
pregnancy with Health Services staff,
Tania said her mind was set on having
an abortion. But when she heard the
baby's heart beat "curiosity took over"
she said and she decided to have the
baby.
Two years later, with baby Mark
crying for her attention, she doesn't
hesitate to admit that she has regrets.
"College is for learning and for having
fun," she said. "Sometimes I really
think it's terrible I missed out on a lot of
things.
Today, Tania said she would recom-
mend an abortion for a woman in her
first year of college. But she adds: "If
you really want to (keep the baby),
keep it."
Tania said she doesn't want to be
idolized or labeled as an ideal woman or
a martyr who decided to affirm life
over abortion.
"I was lucky," she said, explaining
that her parents are able to help her to
care and provide for her child. "I'm
really pro-choice. I think those right to
lifers are so obnxious."
"I was stupid. He was stupid," said
Tania of the couple's failure to use any
kind of birth control method or to think
of the consequences of their actions.
But Matthew Gutchess would
probably have praised Tania's decision
despite her own reservations. Gut-
chess, a member of a small campus
pro-life group informally called Studen-
ts for Life, said; he feels it's his duty to
encourage'women to make decisions
like Tania's.
Gutchess said he used to picket at the
local Planned Parenthood - when it
was located on North Main - on foot-
ball Saturdays. Sometimes he joined as
many as 35 other protesters, he said.
Other times he picketed by himself,
"because I felt it needed to be done,
that it was something I should be
doing."J
On occasion, Gutchess said he tried to
push anti-abortion information into a
woman's hands as she entered the
clinic. However, he added that theI
pickets were "mostly for the people
driving by, to give them a view theyI
don't usually get."
Planned Parenthood officials have
recently charged that groups such as
Michigan Right to Life are encouraging
their members to use illegal tactics to
put abortion clinics out of business.
But Gutchess denies this accusation.
He claims that the sidewalk abortion
counseling he does is effective both for
the woman and the frustrated anti-
abortion protester.
"We have our right to peaceably
assemble," Gutchess said in an
authoritative voice. "The framers of
the Constitution wrote that in. And
that's a good outlet."
Recovery Room: patients find comfort after surgery
Gutchess suggests that it's "probably
a popular thing for clinics to do to pic-
ture their opposition as fanatics."
But walk through the two purple
doors and into the newly constructed
Planned Parenthood of Mid-Michigan
off Huron Parkway Drive and Joanne
Peterson will recall when windows
were smashed at the old facility one
football Saturday.
system protects the premises, and
Peterson said, "Anyone who tries to
break in, the police will know im-
mediately."
Peterson feels strongly about the con-
traceptive education programs her
agency offers as well as the abortion
and vasectomy procedures patients
can request.
"I think the most profoundly immoral
'We have our right to peaceably assemble.
The framers of the Constitution wrote that
in. And that's a good outlet.'
-Matthew Gutchess
Students for Life
pickets. Planned Parenthood is his
target, he said, because counselors
there don't try and encourage a woman
to have her baby. They convince her to
abort it, he said.
"It's not like she has a choice," Gut-
chess added.
udy, who asked that her real name
be withheld, discovered she was
pregnant during holiday break. The
diaphragm she was using had apparen-
tly failed. She discussed the pregnancy
with her boyfriend. They made the
choice together; she would get an abor-
tion.
"Now when I talk about me getting
pregnant, I talk about us getting
pregnant," said the LSA senior. "It was
an awful thing to happen, but it didn't
really have any consequences for us.
"I always thought that I would be
devastated. But now I know that when
something bad happens, I'm strong
enough not to let it get to me."
This year after she graduates, she
and her boyfriend plan to marry. Judy
said the pregnancy brought the two of
them closer together, showing her how
supportive of the relationship her par-
tner actually was.
Judy said she is not completely
without feelings of loss. "I feel sad now
that we're getting married and I know
we'll want to have kids," she said. She
said she is satisfied, however, when she
considers that having a baby would
have changed her life dramatically. "If
abortions weren't available, I probably
wouldn't have gone to graduate
school," she added.
"Besides," Judy said in an upbeat tone,
"it's good to know that we're fertile. It's
a good thing to know when it's time for
us to have kids."
Young is a Daily managing
editor.
Best
flms,
1984
By Byron L. Bull
L ooking back, it doesn't seem like it
was a great year for films. But af-
ter consideration, I begin to wonder if
that assessment isn't based more on
expectation than realization, as is often
the case when you ask film critics for
their thoughts on the medium. It seems
like there are never enough great films,
and all too many lousy ones. The times I
spent hunched forward on the edge of
my seat in absorption weren't quite
compensated by the many more long
hours I spent sunk down almost below
the armrest, my thumbs twiddling as I
patiently waited for the house lights to
go up. In all fairness, this year was
likely no worse than any other, and
possibly better than many.
I'm frequently charged with being too
harsh in my criticism, an accusation
that may sometimes be valid, though
anyone who sees many films, and
reflects on them with any con-
sideration, can't help but begin to react
in extremes. Film is a special art, an
expensive medium that is merely a
business to many of those who work in
it. A filmmaker doesn't have the luxury
of freedom that a writer or painter has.
Film is the most expensive and un-
wieldly field an artist can choose and
the one most likely to resist his efforts
at complete self expression.
This last year saw a number of very
special films. They were intelligent,
well crafted, and also thoroughly en-
joyable entertainment. Yet the total
receipts for all these films combined
probably didn't match one good day's
gross for Ghostbusters. Such is the
nature of the beast. I can't do anything
to reverse the situation, but I can
acknowledge those films that in the last
twelve months have offered us more
than-to use that ugly phrase-good
escapist fun.
I tried, out of respect of tradition, to
come up with a Ten Best Films list but I
honestly could only think of seven. I'm
being neither facetious nor pretentious,
I really just couldn't think of ten so I
cheated and added a list of three
notable runner ups that I liked, not
enough to lie about for convenience
sake. I've also limited the list ot films
that have played in Ann Arbor, or will
by the date this list makes publication.
THE BEST FILMS OF 1984
1. Stop Making Sense
Johnathan Demme's film of a
Talking Heads performance is not only
the best concert film, it's a very
special, very magical experience.
David Byrne and his high tech big band
are vitally energetic and bright. They
radiate warmth like few bands in any
field can summon. The Heads embrace
elements of everything from hard rock
to performance art to gospel with
ingenuity and a rapturous intensity that
makes this year's other big music film,
the dreadful Purple Rain despicable in-
significant in comparison.
David Byrne conceived the staging of
the show and is at the heart of Stop
Making Sense's success; however,
director Demme's efficient, smart
camera work and editing that so vividly
and intimately capture the action
should not be overlooked. Maybe not an
important film by conventional
definition, but it is the brightest film to
have played any screen in town this
year.
2. Comfort and Joy
Scottish director Bill Forsyth's mild
mannered comedy about a radio disc
jockey who finds himself in the middle
of a gangland ice cream war was
fascinating. Forsyth, who last year
gave us the truly wondrous Local Hero
is a filmmaker with an ability to con-
struct dreamy little films full of subtle
wit and deep emotions. In this, only his
fourth film, Forsyth excels with a finely
polished sense for crossing comic ab-
surdism with moody sentimentality.
The result is a film that can at times be
hilarious as well as disquietingly bitter-
sweet. This is the kind of film that may
seem light as you're viewing it, but it
gets under your skin and leaves you
feeling affected long after you've left
the theater.
3. The Brother from Another Planet
The misadventures of an ex-
traterrestrial slave on the run who
crashlands in Harlem that is
refreshingly left of center. Joe Morton
gives a solid performance as the em-
pathetic black E.T. with clawed feet, no
vocal chords, and a knack for video
games, and Sayles' script is sensitive
and very funny. The films only major
flaw is that Sayles' still doesn't show
much of a director's instinct for getting
his clever ideas up on the screen on an
interesting way. The scenes have an
annoyingly stagey stiffness, and there's
not much in the way of texture or at-
mosphere to bring the setting alive.
Still, the films very crudity adds in
ways to its homemade charms, and this
is certainly a far more novel venture
than you're likely to find in the main-
stream cinema.
4. The Gods Must Be Crazy
I almost didn't include this one
because technically its even more
primitive than the Sayles film. Gods
looks like it was filmed with a hand
wound camera, with the sound
haphazardly dubbed in. Secondly the
film is pure fare, undiluted slapstick
played all out. But writer-director-
producer-cinematographer Jamie Uys
fills it with such an abundance of
slaphappy wit that the material rises
above its mechanical limitations, and is
endlessly delightful. The storyline, with
numerous, giddy diversions follows a
bushman played by a real aborigine
named Nixau) who witnesses a Coke
bottle drop from a passing plane and,
assuming it to be a lost possession of the
gods, sets about on a journey to the en-
of the Earth to return it. It's a roughly
cut jewel that shines with good fast fun,
with a wealth of gags and pratfalls
unlike anything since Woody Allen's
early films.
5. Choose Me
Unfairly neglected, Alan Rudolph's
quick, sexy comedy about three forlorn
singles whose lives suddenly become
entangled in a complex web of circum-
stances was surprise from out of the
blue. Rudolph's timing and intricately
surprising script recalls the Lubitsch
screwball comedies of the forties, up-
dated and jazzed up. Keith Carradine,
Lesley Ann Warren, and Genevieve
Bujold give three of the most
beautifully alive performances of the
year. This film will likely be on cable or
the campus guild scene soon, keep an
eye open for it if you missed it because
it's intoxicating fun.
6. Broadway Danny Rose
Woody Allen's endlessly charming
talltale about a luckless show business
manager and his bizarre clientele was
his finest work since Manhattan, but
will not be as well remembered. The
story is rich and offbeat, one that Allen
masterfully sketches in with little
flourishes of all the various styles he's
tinkered with in his films of the last ten
years, but here he overlaps them and
evenly measures them with authority.
A funny, touching film that you might
have to distance yourself from if you're
familiar with Allen's work before you
can really appreciate it.
7. Stranger than Paradise
Youngewriter-director Jim Jar-
musch, with encouragement from Wim
Wenders and $120,000 that he raised on
his own, sh
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Peterson, executive director of the
non-profit organization, added that a
special incinerator had to be purchased
because of anti-abortion activists' at-
tempts to search through the agency's
trash.
"They would look through the garbage
and try to find names of patients so they
could call them up and harass them,"
Peterson said.
Everything about the facility located
on Professional Drive reflects the tight
security. And staff members are
adamant when it comes to preserving a
patient's confidentiality.
All of the windows in the clinic are
surrounded by a tall wooden fenceto
keep out prying eyes. A security alarm
thing a person can do is to bring an un-
wanted child into this world and then
abuse it," she said.
Three years ago a peer educator
program began, Peterson said, that
trains teens to go back to their high
schools and talk to other teensrabout
sexual responsibility. In this particular
education program, the teens are paid
minimum wage and given 128 hours of
intensive training - all as part of an ef-
fort to reduce the increasing incidence
of teenage pregnancy, she said.
Her wish for the right to life
protesters is that "these people work
with unwed mothers and child abusers"
instead of sending obscene letters or
making obscene phone calls to Planned
Parenthood.
But Gutchess plans to continue his
4 - Weekend/Friday, February 1, 1985
Weekend/Friday,