NEWS for Friday, August 25, 2000
"QUESTION ABORTION" CAMPAIGN IN U.S. COLLEGES
Feminists for Life's Ads Put a Face on "Choice"
WASHINGTON, D.C., AUGUST 24 (ZENIT.org)
"College students are
constantly told to challenge the status quo," said Serrin M. Foster,
president of Feminists for Life. "Twenty-seven years after the Roe vs.
Wade decision, abortion has become the status quo -- one out of every
five abortions is performed on a college woman. FFL serves as a
catalyst for developing resources and progressive solutions for pregnant
and parenting students by asking women what they really want -- because
women deserve better."
Their national college outreach program is focused on bringing college
students to question abortion, and to move administrators to provide
resources for pregnant and parenting students.
Foster recently unveiled a series of eight ads. The ads address basic
needs, including alternatives to abortion, paternity establishment,
child support, post-abortion trauma and the lack of campus resources for
pregnant and parenting students. One ad reminds students that without
housing on campus, on-site daycare and maternity coverage, pregnant and
parenting students do not have a choice. "These ads put a face on
'choice'," said Foster.
One of the ads features Rebecca Wasser Kiessling, who was conceived in
rape. Now a lawyer and mother, she asks students, "Did I deserve the
death penalty?" Society seems to assume that the only solution to the
pain of rape is abortion.
Another ad shows a baby's face and asks, "Is this the face of the
enemy?" According to FFL, our society has pitted women against children.
The real enemies are a lack of emotional and financial resources.
FFL's College Outreach Program is now in its fifth year. The program
seeks to address the root of the abortion plague by identifying and
eliminating the causes that drive women to this tragic decision. The
program began at Georgetown University and has since been brought to
Princeton, Berkely, Harvard, University of Chicago, Oxford, and Notre
Dame, among others.
Already on the Georgetown campus, there is greater awareness of the
resources for students. The university has established housing for
pregnant and parenting students, instituted financial assistance for
child care, and hired a full-time staff person to assist such students.
"If we truly care about the rights of women, the very least we can do is
make carrying pregnancy to term a realistic choice," said Kathryn Getek,
former president of the Ivy League Coalition for Life and a graduate of
Princeton University. "On college campuses, for the most at-risk
population, FFL approaches the matter in terms that make people listen."
ZE00082520
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