Ben Snyder, the activism chairman for the anti-abortion group Northwestern University Students for Life, admits he has never been to a Planned Parenthood clinic. Snyder, a Weinberg sophomore, doesn’t know their counseling policies, nor does he know how many NU women have abortions each year.
Yet he and other members of his group want to inform women on campus of their options if they become pregnant. More specifically the group wants to “educate the Northwestern community on what they think of as murder,” Snyder, a former Daily staff member, said.
As in abortion. As in, his group is against it and they want you to be, too.
So when they say options, they really only mean one: Don’t even consider getting an abortion.
What a support group.
Show me a woman who has just found out that she’s pregnant, who’s considering her options (including abortion) and who clearly needs support in an intensely distressing period. And then tell me that woman would feel comfortable going to NU Students for Life for help — a group that is prepared to call her a murderer if she chooses the option they don’t like.
But as it stands, there’s nowhere else on campus she can go.
It’s true that Women’s Health Services in the Searle Student Health Service offers pregnancy tests. But when an acquaitance went there seeking help and assurance and a professional pregnancy test she encountered anything but. Not only did they tell her it was “pointless” to get a pregnancy test since her home-pregnancy kit had already come back positive, but they didn’t have anyone for her to speak to about the physical and psychological effects of abortion. Instead of being met with support, the response from the health services was “basically a dial tone at the other end of the line in terms of options,” she said. In the end they just told her to call Planned Parenthood.
Which is where NU Students for Life have a problem. They aren’t angry that there is a lack of support for pregnant women on campus. Instead they’re angry about something they don’t even understand. Snyder claims that Planned Parenthood “promotes” abortion. But if group members had done their research, they would know that patients are required to undergo several counseling sessions before having an abortion performed, and women are thoroughly informed of the potential implications of the procedure.
What this campus needs are more outlets for discussion, not more closed-minded groups. The administration might not want to deal with a touchy subject like this, but the health of the students — not the moral indoctrination of student groups like NU Students for Life — should be the issue at hand.
