A few weeks ago Students for Life sponsored a Pregnancy Resource Forum, which was hosted by Feminists for Life of America President Serrin Foster. This program was a wakeup call for us as a group in examining the status of resources on campus for students who wish to give birth and/or parent children. One out of 10 college-age women become pregnant each year. One would be a fool to deny that a similar trend does not happen on this campus. Yet, as Foster challenges us to ask, where have all the pregnant students gone? We challenge this campus to face this question, and the role we play in the answer.
At this forum we had representatives from Health Services, Financial Aid, St. Louis Pregnancy Resource Centers, and a current student raising a child. We learned that Financial Aid will work with individual students’ situations. We learned that the new insurance covers most of pregnancy and pediatric care costs with certain providers, but not medications. We learned that there is no day care on campus for students, but that Washington University is eligible to receive federal funds to start one. We learned that the St. Louis community has an overwhelming amount of resources, but students have no way of knowing about them all. Without a representative from Residential Life, we could only guess as to what the policy is for parenting students and housing, which we shouldn’t have to do. Most importantly, we learned that parenting students do exist here.
On one hand, the administration has good intentions, and they will work one on one with students to meet their needs. We applaud that. Yet, there is a bleaker side of the story. Looking around, you would think there is no other choice for a pregnant student but to have an abortion. Women don’t see other pregnant students, they don’t hear about pregnancy resources, and they think: I guess nobody else can do this, so why should I be able to? Regardless of a person’s stand on abortion, all can agree that a woman should not be forced to choose between her child or her academic career. A student facing enough emotional stress from an unexpected pregnancy should not have to dig around campus red tape to find what they need in order to stay in school. Also, not everyone attends college in a traditional way, but many students may come here with families already.
We should abandon our archaic attitudes about pregnancy and parenting during college and realize that, with the right support, it is very realistic. Some things that have been successful at other schools include: cooperative or volunteer day care, pregnancy resource staff members, and interactive distant learning technology for women who need to stay with their young babies. There are probably many students on this campus that would benefit from resources like these. We believe that once WU starts employing resources like these, more parenting students will step out of the woodwork, and lives will be positively changed. In the meantime, Students for Life will be taking the first proactive step by opening its Pregnancy Resource Center sometime next fall. Our goal is to solidify all that is available, so that no woman will be driven to abortion by fear or doubt of her ability to succeed as a parent/birthparent and student. We will work with students who are interested in meeting other WU parents, counseling, adoption, classes, arrangements with WU services, or just someone to talk to about their pregnancy. When deans say they can’t attend a forum on pregnancy resources because they “don’t know anything about them,” something is wrong.
When WU women are made to feel that pregnancy is a disability instead of a great ability, and there are no real choices here but abortion, pro-life and pro-choice alike should be demanding something better.