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Public Radio Station Forbids Use of Phrase “Reproductive Rights”
November 30, 2004
Story Continued...
PEN USA is disappointed with the banning of a phrase from a public radio announcement.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina:
Due to an Federal Communications Commission rule prohibiting public radio stations from airing any underwriting announcements that advocate political, social or religious causes, WUNC-FM informed IPAS, an international women’s rights and health group, that they would no longer be able to use the phrase “reproductive rights” in their on-air underwriting announcement. The station required them to use the phrase “reproductive health” instead.
“Reproductive rights is not a euphemism for abortion,” said Anu Kumar, Ipas’ executive vice president, said. “Among other things, it means the right to infertility treatments, the right to contraception, the right to information, the right to live free of rape and violence. In global forums, those meanings are universally understood. And ‘reproductive health’ doesn’t convey all of that. It’s important to say that our work is about rights as well as health.” The word “reproductive rights” is universally understood as a code to mean all those things, Kumar says.
What upsets Kumar most, though, is not the decision, but the political climate that lead up to it. “What concerns me is the chilling effect of the world we’re living in,” she said. “The issue of reproductive rights, like many others, has been casts as an ‘either you’re with us or you’re against us’ issue, and so much of the language is assumed to be code for something else.”
Station general manager Joan Seifer Rose noted that due to the FCC regulations, “we can’t use advocacy language. Unfortunately, the FCC doesn’t specify what that is. There’s no list of forbidden terms.” Rose notes the only way the station would find it if it “crossed a line” would be if they were challenged and fined after the fact. Due to this, “we’re always pretty conservative in interpreting the announcements we make,” she explained.
PEN USA is concerned that the station should feel the statement “reproductive rights” was advocating a certain position, and thus ban the statement from use. The FCC’s grip on public airwaves is tightening and the chilling effect is becoming more obvious.
Stephen Rohde, First Amendment lawyer and Vice President of PEN USA’s Domestic Freedom to Write program, said, “Look what Janet Jackson has wrought. The FCC is policing the airwaves for ‘indecency’ and ‘advocacy’ without giving broadcasters any inkling of what is allowed and what is prohibited. Consequently, running scared, stations drop the broadcast of “Saving Private Ryan” and now go so far as to prohibit the accurate term “reproductive rights.” Fear of government penalties and fines is distorting the public airwaves and preventing the American public from getting information and entertainment that is constitutionally protected.”
Recommended Action:
Sign IPAS’ online petition at http://www.ipas.org to try to urge WUNC to change their mind about this phrase:
http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=8751