4 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, May 9, 2005 I 420 MAYNARD STREET 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.