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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 1992)
x t i ^^y i s? r IxPiYTPIQk PIT! s 1 \^L/1 ClDiXCli L I sigh, Regents unanimously support family leave By Andy Raun Staff Reporter_ University of Nebraska faculty and staff will be able to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to deal with family mat ters as a result of a vote by the NU Board of Regents. The regents Saturday voted unanimously to approve the new policy, which will not affect other leave policies already in place. Prior to the vole, NU President Martin Masscngalc told the regents he thought the policy would help improve morale and produc tivity in the university workplace. Under the policy, employees could take leave to deal with situations such as the birth or adoption of a chi Id, a serious il Incss of a spouse, I ■ 1 Personnel director calls policy fair parent or child, or a death in the immediate family. The lcavccould be taken in conjunction with paid funeral leave, accrued paid vacation time or leave granted under other university rules. The em ployee would not be paid during family leave but would continue to be cov ered by university insurance _ plans and would rcccivcolher benefits. John Russell, university personnel director, told the regents that while attempts already were being made to work with faculty needing leave, the new policy would make the handling of such situations fair, uniform and equitable. Russell said hccxpcctcd employees to make minimal uscof the leave because it was unpaid. However, he said, the policy would help pre vent employees from resigning because they could not get needed lime off. He said the university would incur little expense with the policy. And Regent Nancy O’Brien of Waterloo said the cost of replacing faculty members who had resigned would be two to three limes higher than allowing them family leave. Regent Rosemary Skrupa of Omaha and Andrew Sigerson, student regent for the Uni versity of Ncbraska-Lincoln, said they feared the family leave policy would have hidden costs. Sigerson proposal an amendment that would prevent such costs from being passed along to students in tuition or fee increases. But). Massengale and others said that with the university’s accounting methods, it would be almost impossible to enforce such a rule. The amendment was defeated. Russell said that whether the regents ap proved the policy, the federal government was likely to mandate something similar in the near future. * Russell said personnel directors on all NU campuses were willing to track the policy’s usage and provide reports on its effectiveness. Julia Mikoiajcik/DN Changing her stripes Jenna Vaughn, 9, paints her face at the Lincoln Children’s Museum at 121 S. 13th St. Sunday afternoon. Vaughn said she wanted to resemble a zebra by the time she was done. _ _ Regents praise new standards By Andy Raun Staff Reporter__ The NU Board of Regents is on track to approve tougher ad missions standards for three University of Nebraska campuses at its December meeting. A proposal to tighten admissions standards at the University of Nc braska-Lincoln, the University of Nebraska at and the H University of Ne braska at Kearney was presented to the regents at their monthly meeting Saturday. Regents, Coordinating Com mission for Postsecondary Education are at odds over capital construction pri orities. See story on page 2. Regents and adm inislralors pra iscd the proposal, which will likely be acted on next month after a scries of public hearings are conducted around the state. “I think it’s going to be of enor mous benefit,” Regent Robert Allen of Hastings said. Under the proposal, students would See ADMISSIONS on 3 Abortion opponents, advocates keep issue alive Wesleyan debate delves into dispute about human life By Mindy L. Leiter Staff Reporter Cn abortion-rights advocate and opponent tangled over women’s rights and what con stitutes the beginning of human life Friday during a debate at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Randall Moody, president of the Board of Directors for Lincoln Planned Parenthood, said he was pro-choice and pro-family, not pro-abortion. “Whose choice will it be, the woman or the government?” he said. Anti-abortion attitudes arc a re sponse of male-dominated govern ment and religions, Moody said. “If men could gel pregnant, abor tion wouldn’t even be an issue,” he said. When faced with the difficult is sues that surround abortion, Moody said, he came out on the side of a woman’s right to choose. Helen Alvarc, an attorney and spokeswoman for the National Con ference of Catholic B ishops, said that although most people tended to use the “pro-choice” label, what they re ally meant was that they were in favor of abortion in eases of rape or incest or to save the mother’s life. That means they oppose about 99 percent of abor tions, she said. The greatest defeat of the abor tion-rights argument,/Alvarc said, is that a Ictus is a living, developing human being from the moment of conception. During the queslion-and-answer period following the debate, Rick Duncan, a professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law, asked Moody to describe an 18-to 20-week old human fetus and explain why it was undeserving of legal protection. “I do not believe that is relevant to this discussion,” Moody said, draw ing boos from the audience. “I do believe in Roc vs. Wade and the right of a woman to make her decisions under that law.” See DEBATE on 3 ■s - ' B—not ready for the responsibility or having a child B economic reasons ifl—feared how a child would change their life B—feared how a child would affect their relationship with parents or partners incest 1% of the the the mother comprises 1% of the Conference of Catholic Bishops Scott Maurer/DN Official questions abortion support, citing ignorance By Andrea Kaser Staff Reporter Most Americans oppose 98 • percent of all abortions in the United Stales without being aware of it, a spokeswoman for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops told students Friday at the University of Nebraska College of Law. Polls indicate there is a high corre lation between the public’s ignorance and its likelihood to support abortion, said attorney Helen Alvarc during a lunch-hour speech, “Abortion: A Failed Societal Ethic.” Alvarc hasco aulhorcd legal briefs to the U.S. Su preme Court in major abortion cases. Alvarc said most Americans would call themselves “pro-choice” but when asked what they meant, most said abortions should be protected in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother was threatened." This belief comes much closer to the “pro-life” stance when statistics arc revealed, she said. Rape and incest comprise I per cent of the reasons for all abortions performed in the United States. Health of the mother comprises one-tenth of 1 percent of the reasons for abortions, Alvarc said. “American opinion changes when you ask about what their label is to what their stance is,” she said. Those people who arc least aware of the actual numbers of abortions, the reasons behind them and the laws that protect them arc more likely to support legal abortion, she said. The more facts people know about abor tion, the more likely they arc to be against it, she said. The number of abortions has in creased anywhere from six to 11 times the number of abortions before 1973, the year abortion was legalized, Alvarc said. Per year, 1.6 million abortions arc performed in the United States, or about 4,400 a day. Of those, 350 a day arc performed between the See ABORTION on 3