Before I go on, I think that it is important to establish a few often-misrepresented facts. First, the fight is not pro-life versus pro-abortion, but pro-life (or anti-abortion) versus pro-choice. My personal religious beliefs lead me to believe that the practice of abortion is wrong. These same beliefs would keep me from practicing Judaism, Islam or Wicca.

However, just as I do not presume to decide what is right for the souls of other women, I also do not believe that I can decide what is right for their bodies. This doctrine of personal morality is the essence of the pro-choice position, as well as many other commonly accepted American policies, including freedom of religion.

Secondly, no matter what your personal view on abortion may be, the fact is that abortion is a perfectly legal and fairly common medical procedure practiced in the United States and most of the world. Though the moral debate about the procedure may rage, the legal debate has been over for decades.

According to Kevin Cox, assistant vice president and director of media relations, Wake Forest refused Planned Parenthood's advertisement in the campus yellow pages, which is published by University Directories of Chapel Hill, because it contained the word "abortion." Before I go any further, I do realize that as a private entity, the university has the legal right to decide what advertisements it will accept.

Cox said the decision reflects a long-standing university commitment to remain neutral on the issue by staying away from the word. Planned Parenthood could have run the ad using the words "pregnancy options" or other more subtle terms. Such terms are not the same as abortion and are generally used by pro-life groups to refer to adoption or counseling. Thus, the agency refused.

The university's decision is in effect a de facto stance on the issue. Paige Johnson of Planned Parenthood characterized the decision as "unfortunate" because, good intentions or no, the university decided to censor information about a medically and legally sound women's health service. Furthermore, in the 2000-2001 directory, there is an ad for another organization with the words "abortion by pill" in it. There is no substantive difference between this ad and the proposed text of the Planned Parenthood ad, which read "abortion up to sixteen weeks." In light of this, it is understandable that Planned Parenthood and Women's Initiative for Support and Empowerment have found this year's decision to be unreasonable and wrong.

The university's attempt to withhold a value judgment is commendable in a sense as the Bush administration is becoming more and more virulently against women's rights. Indeed, this institution is comparatively liberal when contrasted to Bush's opposition to the fairly innocent terms "reproductive health services" and "reproductive rights" in the final declaration of the 1994 U.N. population conference.

My guess is that Bush's real problem is that former President Clinton spearheaded the conference. That, however, is a column for the future.

Given the increasingly unfriendly atmosphere towards women and reproductive health, if including the word abortion in an advertisement is indeed a political statement, it is one that the university should make to signal its commitment to upholding both the laws of the land and women's rights.

The administration of the school and the nation need to realize that, even for women who are personally opposed to the practice, the prospect of being denied the right to abortion is a frightening threat to equal opportunity and signals a gigantic step backwards for the women's movement. In refusing to print Planned Parenthood's advertisement, the universityhas turned what should have been a non-issue into a major issue, and signaled to many women on campus that their commitment to women's rights is incomplete.

Jamie Kidd is a senior majoring in political science.