Attention students: “Pregnant on Campus” initiative needs your help!
When I first became involved in the pro-life movement, as a student at the University of Miami, our Respect Life club created UMiamiPregnancy.org. At the time, it was a pretty basic site (it looks much better now, thanks to a new class of students), but we were proud of it because we knew that it would help women in need. We were also proud because our organization was one of the first students for life groups in the country to start such a project.
Today I’m 26 years old, practically a dinosaur in pro-life years, and such websites are commonplace. I felt really old when I learned that students at the University of New Mexico had opened a pregnancy resource center on their campus. It just gets better and better!
But of course, these resources are useless if they aren’t advertised properly. That’s why Students for Life of America (SFLA), building upon these student initiatives, launched PregnantOnCampus.org. The aim of the site is to provide local, campus-specific information for students at hundreds of schools across the nation. It will also allow for a greater degree of continuity, so that students don’t have to worry about website maintenance after they graduate.
SFLA is counting on pro-life students to crowdsource the information. Right now, because the site is brand new, most of the campus pages contain only generic information about nationwide resources (e.g., the WIC program). To really make PregnantOnCampus shine, SFLA needs you to step up and submit information about local resources that can help mothers at your school.*
Many students for life groups already have this information, from having done projects like UMiamiPregnancy.org, from sidewalk counseling, or from participating in Feminists for Life’s “Perception is Reality” audit. This is entirely doable.
And it’s incredibly necessary:
“Becoming unexpectedly pregnant while in college can be a scary situation for so many women. Over half of abortions are done on women under the age of 25 and many of these students have no idea about the resources available to them on their college campuses to help them stay in school and parent their children, which is why this website is so unique and needed,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of SFLA. “Instead of running to the nearest Planned Parenthood, this website will help pregnant women find resources that are available on their campus right now.” …
“SFLA’s own research shows that nearly 80% of Planned Parenthood facilities are located within five miles of a college or university. College students are prime targets for the largest abortion provider in the country,” said Hawkins. “No woman should have to choose between continuing her education or having a child, even it was unplanned and unexpected. SFLA has worked with universities across the country to help provide pregnant students on campus a one-stop-shop with all the information they need to keep their child and continue their education.”
*Trolls, the information is screened before it’s added, so don’t bother. Desperate women are going to rely on this site and SFLA won’t tolerate your shenanigans.
So these centers provide free 24/7 childcare as required for the duration of the degree, as well as no-strings free pre-natal, childbirth, post-natal, and paediatric healthcare, also for the duration of the degree? Because if so, that's great, plus Planned Parenthood can provide contraception to ensure a student hopefully doesn't have any more unplanned pregnancies and abortion for the students who decide not to continue the pregnancy anyway.
Or are these centres just the usual funnels to the adoption industry?
Why don't you click through to find out what kind of resources they're collecting?
Clicking's not hard, I promise.
Trolls apparently can't be bothered to click links.
I hate to be the one to bust the sad feelie bubble, but in a lot of cases, *inadequate* assistance is worse than NO assistance. Offering a slight amount of assistance and giving a woman an irrational sense of hope, without telling her exactly how much a child is going to cost in time, money, and lost wages, will cause her to make an irrational decision to have a child she then will not be able to properly care for.
Sarcasm's not hard either.
You ought to know,
I did. One school is doing well the other is doing BS.
I want parity of the social safety net with Europe. Until American women get that I cannot in good conscience pretend these attempts at assistance will be effective at all.
I want that too, but in the meantime, there are people who need help now.
And the idea is to provide real reliable help. Only one of the schools out of two is doing anywhere near an adequate job.
It's just started, though. The school where I work has resources that aren't in the SFLA database, so I'm going to add them. That's why they're putting this out there, to get more information.
Each child costs 100K to raise to maturity. I appreciate the thought anyway. Ever been a single parent? I have been one of 3 children for 52 years. Your effort is laudable but I doubt the help is actually there or that you even know what is truly needed.