Pregnancy and College Choices
Picture Courtesy of Holy Cross College
When a young woman becomes pregnant and is in college it raises many a question for the expectant mother. College is hard enough for her as it is and having a pregnancy to deal with adds to the emotional battle that is college life. On campuses across our nation the right to life and the right to choice, AKA the Big Bad word known as Abortion, rages on with the passion that it deserves from both sides of the argument. To suggest a woman’s right to choose is not an argument is to think that the issue is paper or plastic at the supermarket and it is not.
Potentially, this is the first time for the child that is now in college that is faced with a realistic life or death question. This isn’t a pizza or taco’s question. This is the big time decisions that Mom or Pop made for her all of her life. Being pregnant, being in college, facing your parents if you want to keep the baby, facing your friends if you want to keep the baby or making the opposing decision, Big Bad Word again, Abortion should always be up to the woman that is pregnant.
This issue happens every single day and what actually happens to the woman that choose life or the other big bad word is wrong. Keeping the baby should not ostracize the student. Support or the lack there of is interesting and the Worcester Telegram has this to say about The College of the Holy Cross…
Complex issue requires support
Feminists For Life say colleges should help pregnant students
By Mark Melady TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
WORCESTER— Abortion opponents and abortion rights advocates on college campuses can join forces to keep pregnant students in school, a member of an anti-abortion group said at the College of the Holy Cross last night.
“It’s amazing to see those two groups who constantly fight each other working together to see that their fellow student continues her education,” Angelica Rosales of Feminists For Life told about 30 students at Kimball Theater.
Snip with an Ut OHHHH
The abortion issue recently flared at Holy Cross over the scheduled appearance at a conference on campus next week of Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice, groups with views on abortion divergent from the those of the Catholic Church.
The two organizations are part of an Oct. 24 conference in the college’s Hogan Center sponsored by the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy. Holy Cross is not affiliated with the conference, but is renting space to the alliance.
Bishop Robert J. McManus said the sanctity of life teaching of the church “is beyond modification or compromise” and any association with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice “can create the situation of offering scandal.” He warned college officials it was his duty as bishop of the Worcester diocese “to determine what institutions can properly call themselves Catholic.”
The Rev. Michael C. McFarland, Holy Cross president, declined to cancel the rental contract and said the college upholds the church’s teachings on abortion, but is “dedicated to the open exchange of ideas” and “committed to its mission of engaging with the larger culture on even the most problematic and divisive of moral and spiritual issues.” - Worcester Telegram
In my opinion, I agree with the College of the Holy Cross president. If we want our children to be responsible then we have to present both sides of the Abortion (Big Bad Word again) on the table for the woman students to decide for themselves. Mom and Pop have done their best to provide hopefully a well rounded child with a lifetime of values of their parents. What the child took away from that upbringing is who that child is as a young adult. Twenty years later they will be looking back fondly on what Mom and Pop taught them but they have a lifetime of decisions to make on their own.
If the point of the article is true and that our nations colleges are shunning pregnant students like this was the 1950’s then I say shame on them. Woman today are not the same as the woman that their mothers or grandmothers were. So much of society today places pregnancy as a bad thing and it is not. For many young adults it can be. Decisions by the woman have to be hers to make and either way the pendulum swings is her right. Hypocrisy is a double edged sword when it comes to choosing life from some college administrations.
Why do we not place the scarlet letter on the fathers for all of these children of single mothers? For the most part the mothers take the responsibility for the new life while the college student fathers walk away and that is wrong.
While we as a people feel the need to be free in everything we do when it comes to sex, the ultimate responsibility comes down to the pregnant woman. Why? Should the brilliant minds of our young woman face reality in America where you are the best and brightest until you get knocked up by the cute football or basketball player? Then it is adios, thanks for playing. Bring on the freshman class woman! Boys will be boys ya know… Girls will be girls and face the reality of keeping a child or thinking about the Big Bad Word.
I believe that if a young woman wants to keep her baby then every college should encourage her to continue her studies as long as she can. Even remotely suggesting that she take a semester off is telling the entire campus that the school does not want you there setting a bad example. And that is Pro-Life how?
As a Catholic I follow my faith and I would rather lay down with the lepers than sit in the same room as this Bishop if he discredits Holy Cross as a Catholic college.
For the record: I am Pro Life but I believe that a woman has a right to the decisions concerning her body. Jesus never threw a single stone at anyone that society and man thought was a sinner. When was the last time a Priest gave birth?
Heavenly father forgive me for I have sinned and I am absolved.
Papamoka
When a young woman becomes pregnant and is in college it raises many a question for the expectant mother. College is hard enough for her as it is and having a pregnancy to deal with adds to the emotional battle that is college life. On campuses across our nation the right to life and the right to choice, AKA the Big Bad word known as Abortion, rages on with the passion that it deserves from both sides of the argument. To suggest a woman’s right to choose is not an argument is to think that the issue is paper or plastic at the supermarket and it is not.
Potentially, this is the first time for the child that is now in college that is faced with a realistic life or death question. This isn’t a pizza or taco’s question. This is the big time decisions that Mom or Pop made for her all of her life. Being pregnant, being in college, facing your parents if you want to keep the baby, facing your friends if you want to keep the baby or making the opposing decision, Big Bad Word again, Abortion should always be up to the woman that is pregnant.
This issue happens every single day and what actually happens to the woman that choose life or the other big bad word is wrong. Keeping the baby should not ostracize the student. Support or the lack there of is interesting and the Worcester Telegram has this to say about The College of the Holy Cross…
Complex issue requires support
Feminists For Life say colleges should help pregnant students
By Mark Melady TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
WORCESTER— Abortion opponents and abortion rights advocates on college campuses can join forces to keep pregnant students in school, a member of an anti-abortion group said at the College of the Holy Cross last night.
“It’s amazing to see those two groups who constantly fight each other working together to see that their fellow student continues her education,” Angelica Rosales of Feminists For Life told about 30 students at Kimball Theater.
Snip with an Ut OHHHH
The abortion issue recently flared at Holy Cross over the scheduled appearance at a conference on campus next week of Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice, groups with views on abortion divergent from the those of the Catholic Church.
The two organizations are part of an Oct. 24 conference in the college’s Hogan Center sponsored by the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy. Holy Cross is not affiliated with the conference, but is renting space to the alliance.
Bishop Robert J. McManus said the sanctity of life teaching of the church “is beyond modification or compromise” and any association with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice “can create the situation of offering scandal.” He warned college officials it was his duty as bishop of the Worcester diocese “to determine what institutions can properly call themselves Catholic.”
The Rev. Michael C. McFarland, Holy Cross president, declined to cancel the rental contract and said the college upholds the church’s teachings on abortion, but is “dedicated to the open exchange of ideas” and “committed to its mission of engaging with the larger culture on even the most problematic and divisive of moral and spiritual issues.” - Worcester Telegram
In my opinion, I agree with the College of the Holy Cross president. If we want our children to be responsible then we have to present both sides of the Abortion (Big Bad Word again) on the table for the woman students to decide for themselves. Mom and Pop have done their best to provide hopefully a well rounded child with a lifetime of values of their parents. What the child took away from that upbringing is who that child is as a young adult. Twenty years later they will be looking back fondly on what Mom and Pop taught them but they have a lifetime of decisions to make on their own.
If the point of the article is true and that our nations colleges are shunning pregnant students like this was the 1950’s then I say shame on them. Woman today are not the same as the woman that their mothers or grandmothers were. So much of society today places pregnancy as a bad thing and it is not. For many young adults it can be. Decisions by the woman have to be hers to make and either way the pendulum swings is her right. Hypocrisy is a double edged sword when it comes to choosing life from some college administrations.
Why do we not place the scarlet letter on the fathers for all of these children of single mothers? For the most part the mothers take the responsibility for the new life while the college student fathers walk away and that is wrong.
While we as a people feel the need to be free in everything we do when it comes to sex, the ultimate responsibility comes down to the pregnant woman. Why? Should the brilliant minds of our young woman face reality in America where you are the best and brightest until you get knocked up by the cute football or basketball player? Then it is adios, thanks for playing. Bring on the freshman class woman! Boys will be boys ya know… Girls will be girls and face the reality of keeping a child or thinking about the Big Bad Word.
I believe that if a young woman wants to keep her baby then every college should encourage her to continue her studies as long as she can. Even remotely suggesting that she take a semester off is telling the entire campus that the school does not want you there setting a bad example. And that is Pro-Life how?
As a Catholic I follow my faith and I would rather lay down with the lepers than sit in the same room as this Bishop if he discredits Holy Cross as a Catholic college.
For the record: I am Pro Life but I believe that a woman has a right to the decisions concerning her body. Jesus never threw a single stone at anyone that society and man thought was a sinner. When was the last time a Priest gave birth?
Heavenly father forgive me for I have sinned and I am absolved.
Papamoka
For that matter link to it on what you think...
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Labels: Bishop Robert J. McManus, Catholic, Choice, College Hill, College of the Holy Cross, Diocese of Worcester, Holy Cross Alumni, Holy Cross College, Planned Parenthood, Pro Life, Woman’s Rights
posted by Papamoka at
9:26 PM
2 Comments:
Hi there,
Interesting and insightful post...thank you for sharing...
Good post...I am a recent Catholic and I too am pro-life (in the broader Catholic sense), but still support womens' choices.
It is certainly possible to be pregnant/new mom and be a student...but I would point out that having a child is a major choice and change, and when you make choices some paths open up but other close off.
For example, my brother-in-law and I are both studying to become RNs, but our educational paths and ultimate goals are different because he has a family and I don't. They choices we've already made influence the range of choices we have in the future.
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