 Feminists for Life spokeswoman Serrin Foster discusses ideas for helping pregnant women on campuses. |
Serrin Foster knows that sex is a popular conversation topic on college campuses. But, in a lecture Thursday night, the spokeswoman for Feminists for Life said most sex talks omit one important thing.
“How many people talking about sex are talking about pregnancy?” Foster asked.
“Usually, the two go together,” she continued, producing a chuckle from the more than 35 people listening in Swift Hall. If people talk seriously about sex, they should talk just as seriously about the consequences of having sex, Foster said.
Northwestern Students for Life brought Foster to talk during Northwestern’s first-ever Sex Week, a campus-wide program of events and lectures sponsored by the College Feminists promoting awareness, education and communication about sex.
Foster’s presentation, “The Feminist Case Against Abortion,” centered around the abortion debate, but she spent no time discussing the arguments for each side. Instead, her message focused on a proactive approach toward women’s rights, and on why pregnant women should have adequate resources and information at their disposal.
Regardless of whether individuals are pro-choice or pro-life, she said, we should all be able to put our differences aside to “find solutions, and areas of agreement.” Instead of going back and forth saying, “What about the woman!” and “What about the baby!” she encouraged that we “spend the energy to produce change, not argue.”
In the first half of her speech, Foster presented a history of the feminism movement, highlighting the actions and beliefs of figures like Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Betty Friedan. She also spoke about lesser-known feminists such as Victoria Woodhull and Sarah Norton. Foster spoke of their accomplishments to further the feminist cause — a cause which she characterized as pursuing the principles of “nonviolence, nondiscrimination and justice for all.” She said that cause is still important today, both for women and their children.
“There is too much suffering for women out there,” Foster said, “and I am really interested in ending misery.”
Both those supporting and opposing of abortion should be concerned with ending this misery, she said.
“Don’t look at each other as the enemy,” she said. “The only enemies we have are the status quo and accepting failure.”
Foster’s second half of the lecture concentrated on proactive approaches to increase the number of resources available to pregnant women in higher education — whether they be students, teachers or staff. Women on campuses should have options other than abortion, she said.
She encouraged students to support the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnant and Parenting Student Services Act of 2007, which would help provide services for pregnant students.
“You guys have got to get the administration to change,” Foster also said. “Have you heard of revolutions on campuses?”
Foster also offered specific ways in which Northwestern can improve its system of support for pregnant women on campus.
“Where can pregnant women go?” she wondered, sparking a discussion with members of the audience about what resources are available.
Several women from the Women’s Center who were in attendance spoke up about what’s already here: several lactation centers available on campus (both in Tech and the Arthur and Gladys Pancoe Pavilion), affordable housing for couples in Evanston, subsidized childcare for staff and faculty, student healthcare, and maternity and paternity leave for professors.
But Foster and some members of the audience agreed: Although all of these services are helpful to pregnant women, they are still not enough. Among the suggestions for improvement:
- Creating an “ongoing mechanism” for communication, such as a web site which would provide information to pregnant women and their partners, and allow them a way to share their thoughts with others in similar situations.
- Integrating education about pregnancy into orientation programs on campus.
- Starting a volunteer babysitting co-op where students and teachers can get free or lower-cost childcare services.
- Forming a support group for men who find out their partners are pregnant. “He’s in a crisis, too,” Foster said of men who find out about unexpected pregnancies. “He’s in a crisis of conscience, a crisis of economics, a crisis of mind-reading and knowing what to say to her.”
While being a student or a professor makes parenting harder, Foster said it doesn’t make abortion the only choice — but schools must be sure that appropriate resources are available to women in order for them to be able to make a decision that is pro-life.
“We have to be sensitive to birthmothers,” Foster said. “We have to find out what they need.”