Students reactivate Penn for Choice group

Absent from campus for the past several years, the pro-choice student group Penn for Choice was reinstated last night after holding its introductory meeting.

College freshman Christopher Carroll decided to reactivate the organization after noticing its absence in the Penn community.

“It was a huge group a couple of years ago,” he said. “[But] people graduated and other people didn’t want to get it restarted.”

Carroll, joined by a small group of pro-choice supporters, spent the meeting developing the group’s two goals: gaining publicity for its efforts and combating the Stupak Amendment to the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

The Stupak Amendment forbids any public option or private plan that subsidizes customers from covering the cost of an abortion.

“My goal has always been to ensure that the voices of the majority of Americans who oppose federal funding for abortion were heard in this important debate,” Rep. Bart Stupak (D- Mich.), who co-wrote the amendment, said in a press release.

The amendment passed the House last month with a vote of 240 to 194.

“If this amendment passes [in the Senate], abortion will turn into back-alley abortion,” Carroll said. “It’s just another invasion of a woman’s body and women’s rights.”

To protest the amendment, Penn for Choice will collect signatures for a petition to send to Reps. Chaka Fattah (D- Pa.) and Robert Brady (D- Pa.).

With each signature on the petition, the group will send a wire hanger to the Representative’s office “to represent what women’s health would turn into if the amendment passed,” Carroll said.

A longer-term goal of the organization is to raise awareness of pro-choice issues on campus.

“People have become complacent,” said College and Engineering junior Rob Hass, a member of Penn for Choice. “They’ve begun to think that this is the way things are and abortions don’t need to be fought for anymore.”

One idea the group’s members had to publicize their efforts was to host a sex toy party, an event the organization had hosted successfully in the past.

Another idea discussed was hosting a panel discussion between Penn for Choice and the anti-abortion student group Penn for Life.

“There is a huge presence of Penn for Life on campus,” Carroll said. “They have a large grassroots effort and I’m really looking forward to combating that.”

College senior Adrienne Lee Benson, who was a member of Penn for Choice when it had been active a few years ago, said a panel discussion would be effective at informing students.

“The more educated we can make people, the better our advocacy is,” Benson said.

The introductory event was held at the Penn Women’s Center. While no further meetings will be held this semester, the group will pick up again after winter break.