Making a CHOICE

By KATHRYN RICHERT Colorado Daily Staff
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 10:59 PM MDT

Let's Talk About Sex” by Salt-N-Pepa was an appropriate choice to play in the background at a booth of female students promoting sex education and women's options on the lawn south of the University Memorial Center on Tuesday.

The two-day event, ending Wednesday, was organized by CHOICE (Creating Helpful Options In Contraception Education) which was created by seven CU-Boulder women in their communication class, “Campaigns and Revolutions.”

Instead of simply learning about campaigns in the classroom, Professor Michael Zizzi wanted his students to create their own campaigns to generate social change and revolution about topics such as the environment, law or health.

Because the “health group” was all female, the women quickly choose to focus on what they know best - women's health.

Sara Watts, CHOICE group member and junior communications major, said the group's philosophy is pro-safe sex, pro-information and pro-options, but not necessarily pro-choice or pro-life. The women simply want to encourage other women to make informed decisions about their sexual health, whatever that decision may be.

“We're trying to provide information and educational materials in a non-judgmental way,” Watts said. “We want to make it easy as possible for women to gather information because the decisions they have to make are hard enough.”

The group wanted to create a counter-campaign to an anti-abortion movement organized by Operation Save America (OSA), a Christian group that displays billboard-sized pictures of aborted fetuses at CU annually. The group, however, will not be visiting campus this year.

Watts said the pro-life OSA message does not necessarily bother CHOICE members; however, they are concerned about the methods that OSA uses in order to promote their viewpoint.

“Scare tactics are not the way to promote positive change,” Watts said. “Scaring someone into making a decision is not making progress.”

Flip Benham, director of OSA, said the organization's mission is to “lift up the gospel of Christ” - and the pictures of aborted fetuses show the truth.

“If something is so scary you don't want to look at it, perhaps you not ought do it. Why call it scare tactics if that's what you're doing?” Benham said in regard to abortions.

Students who walked by the booth on Tuesday were mostly supportive of the group's mission with only one “Baby Killers” shout-out.

Nichole Gizowski, a senior communications major, preferred CHOICE's non-intrusive method as opposed to OSA.

The booth “is less offensive by letting people decide for themselves without putting it in their face,” Gizowski said.

Watts said CHOICE is not shying away from providing handouts about the harmful consequences of unprotected sex.

The group also provided condoms and pamphlets with a variety of information about birth-control options, unplanned pregnancy, abstinence, counseling and spiritual advice. The pamphlets were provided for free by Wardenburg Health Center at CU and Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

CHOICE members asked students to sign their tablecloth to support a woman's rights to decide what is right for her and her future.

Additionally, CHOICE'S “Pleasure Chest” contained prizes that were raffled off including a “Position of the Day” sex book and a vibrator.

“We wanted to promote all kinds of safe sex, and masturbation or self-love is a very safe form of sex,” Watts said. “We wanted to do away with the stigma [associated with masturbation] and have fun with it.”

What started as a typical group project ended up being a lot more meaningful to Watts and the other members of CHOICE.

“This all started with class, but we're lucky enough to pick a topic that really resonated with us,” Watts said. “We put a lot of time and energy in this, but we hope to do more than just get a good grade.”

Contact Kathryn Richert about this story at editor@coloradodaily.com, or by

calling (303) 443-6272, ext. 133.

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