'Marcia' speaks on birth control

BY JORIE GREENBY JORIE GREENDaily Pennsylvanian Staff WriterBY JORIE GREENDaily Pennsylvanian Staff Writer"Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" a wild audience chanted, as former Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormick walked across the stage last night in the Maloney Building at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. "Aw, that's so sweet!" said McCormick, who seemed more like an ex-valley girl than a thirty-something actress and mother of a four-year-old. It was an improbable scene. After all there was Marcia Brady, evoking images of an innocent young girl, lecturing a bunch of college students about birth control. But McCormick, the third and last speaker to discuss contraceptives at the "Birth Control Matters" lecture, was all business as she warned the crowd of University students and other fans that "making decisions about birth control can be very difficult." "When I was a teenager, I was so afraid to discuss sex – it was like, no way," she said. "I could never do that." McCormick said she made the mistake of consulting her peers, who were equally ignorant of contraceptives. "They didn't have seminars like this back then," she said. The former child star urged the audience not to err in the same way and to educate themselves. "Your doctors have the answers but you must ask the questions," she said. "Your doctor is a medical professional." McCormick said she understands the difficulty of asking doctors for advice, though. "When I first went to a gynecologist, I was like, oh my God, so nervous," she said with a toss of her blond hair. "I just couldn't ask questions." McCormick turned the lecture to birth control issues affecting women in Philadelphia. She said 15 percent of women in Philadelphia have forgotten to use a birth control method in the past three months. "That's pretty scary, isn't it?" she told the audience. Medical School Professor Steven Sondheimer, the moderator of the lecture, then allowed a few questions from the audience. "What kind of birth control did Alice and Sam the Butcher use?" asked College sophomore Eden Jacobowitz, causing a ripple of laughter in the audience. "I don't know, I wasn't there," she answered. Members of the audience asked Sondheimer and the other guest lecturer, Fay Stokes of the Family Planning Council, more serious questions about contraceptives. Some students expressed a particular interest in the "morning after pill," which prevents pregnancy after unprotected intercourse has occurred. Sondheimer said the "morning after pill" is available at the Women's Clinic at Student Health, and must be taken no more than three days after a couple has a single act of unprotected intercourse. McCormick did not escape without answering a few questions about her experience as a star on The Brady Bunch. When asked whether she had had any "Brady hook-ups," McCormick admitted to having an "innocent crush on Barry [Williams, who played brother Greg]...it was really nothing." She also admitted to having had a "crush" on Desi Arnez Jr., who at that time was dating Liza Minelli. "But I don't think he liked me," she said. The audience had varying opinions about McCormick's lecture. "She was great," Wharton sophomore Matthew Gilroy said. " I always wanted to ask Marcia about birth control." But Nursing sophomore Melodie Troike said she thinks the talk would have been more effective if McCormick was "less ditzy." "She added no knowledge about birth control," she said.