Students for Life reaches out to pregnant women in college
by Kelli
Often the message she hears is: Have an abortion or drop out of school….
For her and her child’s future and well being, our goal should be to make sure she graduates…. [A] child born into poverty is seven times more likely to live in poverty his or her whole life.
… Colleges aren’t naturally pregnancy/parenting friendly…. We can change that culture and help women and their babies through this program.
The pressure on a pregnant student to abort her child is enormous — she could be getting pressure from her family, her friends, her partner, her professors. She absolutely needs to know that abortion is not her only option and that there are caring people on campus who really want to help her.
~ Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins, discussing the group’s new Pregnant on Campus initiative, as quoted by National Review Online, December 8
[HT: Hans Johnson; photo via SFLA.org]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
What a wonderful program! I know my sister mentioned the shocked stares and whispered comments she received while completing her final semester of college and sporting a huge belly. My university had minimal childcare services, but I understand it was costly and always overbooked. Come to think of it, I never saw a bathroom with a changing table, or a nursing lounge.
One day my husband and I hope to move back to the town where my alma matter is located; if that happens, I will be sure to look this group up and see how I can help change that one college’s culture!
My university has those things, but they aren’t in the main campus buildings and I suspect they are more for employees than students. There is a childcare center…but your child has to be 2 to attend.
I brought my now 4-month-old son with me on campus a few times to run errands (I’m taking a break from school at the moment) and I thought the reactions were hysterical. One girl looked at me open-mouthed and went: “Is that a BABY??!?” like she had never seen one before.
The funniest was the table of students promoting a No on Measure 1 vote, though. Trying to talk about abortion rights while my son was looking directly at them.
I have long noticed that many 20-something college students tend to be myopic and isolated as a result of being surrounded with people their own age on a “campus island.”
They go to class with people their own age, they socialize with people their own age, and on Christian campuses, they even go to church with people who are mostly their age. My husband and I noticed this while we were married and attending college while living just one block from campus. To try and get unmarried college students to attend an activity (or a church) where multiple age groups were present was nearly impossible.
Only after they graduate do they “wake up” to the fact that it is acceptable – heck, even beneficial! – to join life with other age groups.
Nothing about our education system prepares young people for life. (I suspect this is the main reason why the home-schooling movement is attractive to so many people across a wide spectrum of enthusiasms.)
Any small reform would be a step in the right direction.
A pro-life, pro-child program at high-schools and universities is a wholesome response to the dominant contraception/hook-up/abortion culture.
What a great idea!
Nothing about our education system prepares young people for life. (I suspect this is the main reason why the home-schooling movement is attractive… – now that Del, would have to be one of the funniest things you’ve said yet. The education system allows young people to meet and mix with a wide variety of people, thinking and beliefs. They also learn factual science and history. Some home-schoolers only mix with people of the same narrow thinking and beliefs and not all are taught factual science and history.