On Monday, The Gainesville Sun chose not to run the day’s edition of Doonesbury, a popular comic strip by Garry Trudeau.
The biggest question we have is: What are you afraid of?
The Sun published an editor’s note online with the headline “Why Doonesbury isn’t in The Sun this week.” The note explained that the comic did not make it into its print edition “due to insensitive language.”
Did the comic strip include cuss words, dropping a few “s” and “f” bombs?
No, it didn’t.
Did the comic strip use racial slurs or single out a particular group of people?
No, it didn’t do that, either.
So why did The Sun feel it was necessary to censor this strip?
The comic starts with a woman entering what looks like a hospital. She asks a medical assistant in a white lab coat if she is in the right place to get a sonogram.
The medical assistant asks the woman if this is her first time terminating a pregnancy. The woman replies in the affirmative and the medical assistant asks her to fill out a form and sit in “The Shaming Room.”
The woman asks what the medical assistant means by this remark, and the assistant responds, “A middle-aged, male state legislator will be with you in a moment.”
Recently, a few states have tried — and succeeded — to pass laws mandating that women seeking abortions must first receive an ultrasound. This week’s Doonesbury was clearly commenting on this issue.
It plays off the argument that the government is getting between women and their health care decisions by literally putting a state legislator in the aforementioned situation.
But the Alligator is not concerned with the arguments made by the cartoon. Instead, we are concerned with why The Sun thought the cartoon was so offensive that it decided to remove it from its regular spot on the comics page.
The Sun, like the Alligator, is a private institution and has the ability to make editorial decisions about what does and does not run on its pages.
The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of publications to write and publish anything they want, as well as prohibit the publication of anything of which they do not approve.
But why censor this comic? What was so insensitive about it?
While newspapers have the editorial freedom to decide what goes on their pages, should it not strive to contribute to public discourse as much as possible by publishing competing arguments?
This Doonesbury cartoon made a very valid argument about this issue, and one that should be a part of the public discussion.
Just because you have the right to self-censor does not mean you should.
