4 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, May 9, 2005
I
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ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 STEPHANIE WRIGHT
tothedaily@michigandaily.com Editor in Chief
DONN M. FRESARD
Editorial Page Editor
EDITED AND MANAGED BY
STUDENTS AT THE Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other pieces do not
SINCE 1890 necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily.
Sign of weakness
Detroit archdiocese could afford to keep
schools open, chooses not to
Shooting for the sky
City should allow taller buildings on South U.
Three years ago, the Catho-
lic Archdiocese of Detroit
raised $20 million to reno-
vate its flagship Cathedral of the
Most Blessed Sacrament. While
some Detroit-area Catholics were
skeptical about a project so costly
at a time when many of the city's
Catholic parishes and schools were
in disrepair and struggling to stay
open, Detroit archbishop Cardinal
Adam Maida insisted that the proj-
ect was a necessary display of the
archdiocese's strength and its com-
mitment to Detroit.
Now, the archdiocese is prepar-
ing to close 15 Catholic schools in
metro Detroit next month; only 12
will remain in the city, down from
more than 120 at mid-century. The
church leadership has refused to hear
any appeal of its decision, arguing
that demographic trends have made
the schools unsustainable. While it
is true that enrollment in most of
the schools has dropped severely
and tuition cannot cover their costs
in most cases, the archdiocese could
afford to keep the schools open if it
wanted to. The fact that it refuses
to do so amounts to an abandon-
ment of its educational mission in
Detroit and, in the eyes of many
Detroit Catho-
lics, a profound
display of the
archdiocese's
weakness.
To be sure, °r-
Detroit's Catho-
lic schools are
struggling. The
city's popula-
tion - Catholic,
and non-Catho-
lic - has fallen
drastically since
the middle of
the century,
and the nation-
wide decline
in priests and
nuns has forced
Catholic schools
to rely heavilyw
on lay teachers,
who come at a
comparatively
high cost. As a result, enrollment
has decreased sharply, and tuition -
especially in the inner-city schools,
where nearly all of the students rely
on financial aid - can no longer
cover the schools' operating costs.
The closing schools have outstand-
ing debts totaling over $16 million
and run an overall yearly deficit of
about $3 million.
Still, despite low enrollment,
Detroit's Catholic schools remain
among the best educational oppor-
tunities the city has to offer. High
schools like Detroit's Holy Redeemer,
which has just 189 students currently
enrolled, vastly outperform the city's
disastrous public schools - Holy
Redeemer graduates more than 95
percent of its student body, and more
than 95 percent of its graduates go
on to college. For the archdiocese,
schools like Holy Redeemer repre-
sent a financial burden. But for many
of the 2,241 students attending the
doomed schools, the archdiocese's
decision to free itself from that bur-
den will mean an inferior education
- if not an abridged one.
When the archdiocese decided
to renovate Cardinal Maida's home
cathedral, it undertook a massive
fundraising campaign, approaching
each of its 315 parishes for contri-
butions and courting big donors at
Maida's residence. If Maida and the
rest of the church leadership had the
same level of commitment to the edu-
cation of Detroit's children, there can
be little doubt that they could have
launched a similar effort to keep the
schools open. There is no shortage of
potential benefactors who would be
willing to help: In the absence of any
fundraising effort
by the archdio-
cese, individual
high schools like
Notre Dame and
St. Martin de Por-
res have solicited
donors willing
to pay off their
debts and balance
their operating
budgets,6only to
see the archdio-
cese refuse their
offers.
On "moral"
issues like con-
traception and
divorce, where
;'profound shifts
in the attitudes
of mainstream
s American Catho-
lics over the past
several decades
have rendered the Vatican's tradition-
al positions obsolete, the church has
taken pride in standing firm against
the popular tide. It is disheartening
to see the Archdiocese of Detroit,
at a time when its services are so
badly needed, surrender its schools
to demographic shifts. If Cardinal
Maida wanted to make a show of
the church's strength in Detroit, he
missed his chance.
hile the University Towers apartment
building, built in 1965, may tower over
South University Avenue, upward growth
in the area has been limited in recent years by zoning
laws that prohibit the construction of buildings over
two stories tall. However, city officials have recently
floated a plan to raise that limit to six stories in an
effort to encourage urban density and revive the South
University business district. The Ann Arbor City
Council must move quickly to enact this plan, not
only because it will provide housing close to campus,
but also because it fits within the larger framework of
curbing urban sprawl.
For businesses in the area - many of which spon-
sored a similar rezoning proposal last year - this
plan would be a boon. Currently, according to The
Ann Arbor News, many of the businesses on South
University face a difficult climate; Councilmember
Chris Easthope (D-5th Ward) has called the climate
"fragile." By increasing housing density in the area,
these businesses would receive more customers and
a significant boost. Furthermore, because buildings
could be bigger under this plan, the Downtown Devel-
opment Authority predicts that many landowners in
the area will reinvest and redevelop their buildings.
For customers and tenants who shop and live in the
South University area, this effort to reinvigorate facil-
ities will translate into a better overall experience.
More importantly, however, vertical growth would
increase housing density. Each year, Ann Arbor stu-
dents are caught in a fierce housing market, faced with
expensive, low-quality living options. By relaxing the
cap on building height around South University (which
lies between East University and Washtenaw Avenues),
developers will be able to build taller housing units in
close proximity to University facilities. These develop-
ments would not only give students more options, but
also force competing landlords to upgrade facilities
and lower prices.
Also, by encouraging downtown housing develop-
ment, this plan would help advancethe DDA's goal
of curbing urban sprawl and establishing downtown
Ann Arbor as the economic and residential hub of the
region. The greatest force spurring outward develop-
ment has been a lack of adequate housing downtown.
By tripling the maximum height of buildings in a
busy area that cuts through the center of the city, this
plan would help to directly alleviate that problem.
It would also enhance the impact of another signa-
ture Ann Arbor project, the Greenbelt. While buying
up land outside Ann Arbor can help limit sprawl in
neighboring townships, tall buildings are necessary to
house businesses and residents within the city itself.
Buying land in adjacent municipalities will only delay
sprawl; unless prospective residents are given viable
alternatives located in the city, they will simply move
further out, beyond the range of the Greenbelt.
This plan has few drawbacks. While some resi-
dents may be worried about the aesthetic impact of
taller buildings, these concerns are trumped by the
benefits of cheaper, better housing, decreased sprawl
and economic prosperity.
Not a Kodak moment
State should abort bill forcing women to see fetus photos
Playing at the deepest of human emotions, a
new bill facing the state House would require
doctors to provide pregnant women with ultra-
sound photographs of their fetuses prior to perform-
ing abortions. While the bill does not force women
to view the photographs, women will automatically
receive them, via mail or the Internet, at least 24 hours
before scheduled abortions.
Supporters of the bill claim it will humanize the
fetus to the mother and hopefully cause her to see the
weight of her decision to terminate her pregnancy. By
giving the woman an opportunity see exactly what
a fetus looks like inside the womb, she will suppos-
edly have all the "facts" necessary to make a well-
informed decision. In essence, supporters of the bill
contend, they want women to avoid making choices
they may later regret.
However, beyond creating more legal and economic
barriers to abortion - women will have to visit doc-
tors more often before getting abortions, and abortions
will be more expensive - this legislation psychologi-
cally and emotionally assaults women who choose to
receive abortions. For all the support it received in the
House, the bill is a blatant exploitation of human emo-
tion for the purpose of lowering the abortion count.
By swaying a woman against her decision to termi-
nate a pregnancy through the use of photographs, pro-
ponents of this measure are taking advantage of the
most vulnerable part of the human psyche for politi-
cal purposes. The requirement is a deliberate form of
emotional blackmail - a demeaning and shameful
use of persuasion by way of pulling at the heartstrings
of abortion clients. Speaking for Gov. Jennifer Gran-
holm, spokeswoman Liz Boyd rightly denounced the
legislation as a "gimmicky, ineffective way of address-
ing the issue of unintended pregnancies."
There is a broad consensus, across ideological lines,
that society should do what it can to decrease the num-
bers of abortions. While few will disagree with that
objective, providing a pregnant woman with photo-
graphs of her unborn child is simply the wrong way
to achieve it. A more effective strategy would be to
make birth control and emergency contraceptives more
readily available to the public. Lowering the number of
unplanned pregnancies through contraceptives would
naturally lower the abortion count - therefore advert-
ing the painful procedure of an abortion.
Despite these measures, unwanted pregnancies will
still occur. If anti-abortion activists wish to commu-
nicate the weight of terminating a pregnancy to those
women who do become pregnant, they should provide
extensive counseling and services - not photographs.
Women should have all the facts before making such
a decision, but looking at visual images of the fetus is
not the way to make an informed decision. Such "evi-
dence" does little to help a woman come to a rational
decision; rather, it pulls at heartstrings and appeals to
basic, instinctive emotions.
A woman's path to an abortion is already diffi-
cult and laden with obstacles; bills like this one only
impinge on a woman's right to choose. The state
should be working to limit accidental pregnancy, not
to guilt and emotionally blackmail those women who
choose to have abortions. Providing a woman with
photographs of her soon-to-be-terminated fetus is
a demeaning tactic; there are other, more humane
ways the state can pursue a lower abortion count and
inform women about their options.