Two young women from New Jersey become pregnant. Two babies end up dead, discarded as if their tiny lives held absolutely no value. If it turns out that these two young women were responsible for the death of their newborn children, we have to ask ourselves, what drove them to believe that this was their only option? And are the women alone to blame? Amy Grossberg, a freshman in college, becomes pregnant by her high school sweetheart Brian Peterson. The child is found dead in the dumpster behind the motel where Amy gave birth. According to an autopsy, the child, a full-term baby boy, was healthy at the time of its birth. Now both Grossberg and Peterson stand trial for the murder of the newborn. Did their plan include murder? We must wait for the trial to hear the rest of the story. The second shocking case is that of Melissa Drexler, the young woman who delivered her baby in a bathroom stall at her high school prom then put the newborn in the trash. A custodian found the baby, and when Drexler was confronted she admitted that the baby was hers. The key difference in this case is that absolutely no one knew that she was pregnant -- not her parents, not even her boyfriend. The prevailing opinion is that since Drexler kept her pregnancy hidden for nine months, she thought she'd be able to murder her child and get away with it. But why would she do such a thing? The fact that she kept her pregnancy a secret makes this case disturbing. Drexler is not just another teenage girl who's scared to tell her parents that she's pregnant. She was probably so scared of telling anyone that she completely denied her pregnancy. She couldn't face the fact that she was going to have a child. This is an example of the opposite of a hysterical pregnancy. If someone asked Drexler whether or not she was pregnant, she most likely would have told them no. So when she went into labor and delivered her child in the bathroom stall, not even the severity of the labor pains and contractions could snap her out of the false reality she had created for herself. The birth of her child was probably something like an out-of-body experience for her: like she was witnessing herself delivering this baby, wrapping it in a plastic bag and throwing it in the trash, yet not actually participating in those actions. The implications of these two cases point to larger problems within American society, problems which may have been a factor in influencing the behavior of these two young women. The most significant problem is the lack of communication in American families. Dialogue between teenagers and their parents about sex is practically nonexistent. Some parents expect that their kids will learn all the facts in school, so that even the standard awkward talk between father and son, mother and daughter, is eliminated. What's needed in families is exactly the opposite- an ongoing conversation about sex and sexuality. Would these two tragedies have occurred if these young women had been able to go to their parents? Probably not. If these women felt that they could rely on their families, instead of being fearful of them, they could have revealed that they were pregnant. The inadequacy of sex education in our public schools may have played a role here. Could either of these unwanted pregnancies have been prevented if Grossberg, Drexler and their boyfriends had more knowledge of and access to condoms, the pill and other kinds of birth control? How thorough of a job did their teachers do in educating these young women about protecting themselves not only against unwanted pregnancies, but also against sexually transmitted diseases? How open was the dialogue between these young people and their health educators? Was birth control something that could be discussed with a health teacher or a school nurse? Parents and schools don't necessarily deserve all the blame in the death of these two innocent children. If found guilty, these young people should be held accountable for their actions, because they're certainly old enough to know what they were doing was wrong. With any luck, however, the distress that Amy Grossberg and Melissa Drexler experienced would be eliminated if young women were better educated about sex in school and could turn to their parents if they became pregnant.
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