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Stoning out the pregnant from our schools
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by Nicolo F. Bernardo
JAMES, not his real name, fathered a child with his girlfriend out of wedlock. Both were still college students. Threatened to be kicked out from school and confused on what to do with the unexpected pregnancy, he himself did the unexpected. I just heard the late news during our high school batch reunion that James was in fact long dead. He committed suicide.
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My initial reaction was disbelief and bewilderment. I heard of pregnant teens committing abortion just to escape the trouble. But fathers committing suicide? I was able to talk with guidance counselors in my Catholic university that such pressures do occur even with Catholic students. Abortion and suicide are two things they consider with the thought that they are doomed to stop school and to face the rage of their parents and mentors for the pregnancy.
This reminds me of George W. Bush’s address to the last March for Life rally in Washington, covered by the EWTN. He dreams of America where pregnant girls can continue their education. Thirty-five years ago, abortion was legalized in the US after the Roe vs. Wade case, partly when “Roe’s” lawyer argued that an unmarried pregnant woman cannot complete her education.
For this situation to change, reform has to start with Catholic schools. Top Catholic and secular universities like Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, Georgetown, Marquette, Loyola-Baltimore, and Notre Dame universities, instead of kicking out unmarried pregnant students, would now even provide them multiple abortion-preventing services: from health care, to counseling, to campus ministry, to deans’ support while studying and living life as normal as possible. The result? Abortions among college-based women declined by 30 percent in the US , a decade after this move in Catholic universities started in 1994.
This is one thrust of the proposed national Students’ Magna Carta Act and other school-based students’ code. Many of our Catholic schools, instead of caring to already troubled or perhaps suicidal pregnant students and their partners, would pressure them either to get out of school or to marry very soon if they want to stay. These are the same schools that have no pro-life centers within their campuses that could give them heavy-duty guidance, or have never embarked on any serious pro-chastity campaign within their premises.
Some student-discipline officers argue that unmarried pregnant students must be refused admission, saying that this is a routine unwritten policy lest the violators scandalize and influence others. Or they argue that they are “protecting” the pregnant student from physical strain (when education is largely mental than physical) or from shame (ironically, by joining the shame campaign!). But my question: Would students rush to get pregnant too upon seeing a classmate with a bulging belly? If we were to dismiss into oblivion pregnant teens to prevent scandal, are we not acting like the fundamentalists who stone unmarried pregnant women just “to teach others a lesson?” What do we get from stopping their education, especially Catholic education?
As it turns out, the “kick-out” policy is indeed preventive and restrictive of pregnancy, but not preventive of premarital sex. Many sexually-active students simply hook themselves into contraception and abortion to avoid pregnancy and get around the policy. When a Catholic school fails to prevent premarital sex from occurring, there goes another problem. What would it do to prevent abortion? Kicking the partners out? What’s so Christian about that?
This is not to say that Catholic schools must in any way embrace premarital sex, or that it must stop warning students that teenage pregnancy is not healthy and right. Not at all. But it is one thing to provide students an environment that discourages premarital sex and its consequences, and another to help a mother and her unborn child by continuing, rather than severing, education that can secure their future as soon as possible.
In these days of Church advocacy against abortion, the more Catholic schools should welcome unmarried pregnant students. This is a statement that a woman in her untimely pregnancy should stand for life despite the mistake, and that the school and the Church are willing to reach out even as the parents or the partner may be unwilling to support the pregnancy.
Pregnancy is supposed to be good news. It can be distressing until we work for a way for every child to be welcome. If rules can’t be bent for the unwed expectant mother, then do so for the child’s sake. Depriving the expectant parents of Catholic education, guidance and formation will only spell more trouble, more uncertainties, more temptations.
Let us think what perhaps Jesus Christ would do in these cases. He is known for welcoming the “sinful” Mary Magdalene, even took her into his circle of friends, to teach and educate her. He did not kick her out of his “school of life,” neither did he refuse his other fallen disciples. In fact, Christ came precisely for these people. Thus, a puritanical Catholic school has failed its mission. The problem with some Catholic schools’ self-professed “right-to-life” puritans is that they are too much on looking “right,” but too less on charity for “life.” What’s surprising is that there are more public schools willing to accommodate these pregnant students, and offer some dignity to their pregnancy.
Schools that have no means to provide special education, care, or guidance to unmarried pregnant students are themselves traditional victims of the “culture of death.” They see the event of life from premarital sex simply as a sin, a stigma, a violation. They failed to see the gift of life and the touch of the Creator in every pregnancy, which has to be supported. They shun the sin, the sinners, and their innocent children altogether. No wonder why the students think their pregnancy, and their lives, are simply sin and stigma to get rid off. Such policies failed, and would continue to fail, in saving the lives of the likes of James, their partners, and their unborn brood.
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