COLUMN: Opening doors to understanding

From Stephanie Cooperman's, "The Velvet Hammer," Fall '98 The murmurs may be low, but they speak volumes about our society today. The truth is that women become unexpectantly pregnant. Even at colleges and universities. Even at the University of Pennsylvania. Judging by the lack of conversation that takes place on Penn's campus concerning the issue, few seem to realize this. Perhaps the relative silence is due to another false assumption: We are too smart for irresponsibility or simple mishap. But I don't think high school health classes quite did the trick. Statistics today show that teenage pregnancy is at an all-time low. However, the numbers may be deceiving. While four out of every 10 women will be pregnant by the age of 20, no one seems to find it worthy to calculate the number of women above 20 who become pregnant in college. Yet the personal dilemmas that face college women, even Ivy League women, cannot be described in mere numbers anyway. High school health classes cannot teach of the emotional crisis that may occur with the news of an unplanned pregnancy. The silence implies a stigma, almost too obvious in the wake of the recent trend of depositing newborn babies in trash receptacles rather than risk the public acknowledgment of an abortion or adoption. Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson were of the same mold as many Penn students. Raised in an affluent New Jersey suburb 20 minutes outside of New York City, the couple murdered their child last year, left him in a garbage dumpster and then returned to their respective colleges. Some criticized the society which had produced two students who placed their own shame above human life. Although this may be a ridiculous hyperbole of the truth, the stigma which makes such thoughts still exists at Penn. When two close friends of mine became pregnant last year even after taking the appropriate measures to ensure "safe sex," I was surprised to realize that the hush that ensued did not come from the expected lips. One woman did not attend college, worked to support herself and became pregnant after having sex with a man she barely knew. The other went to Penn, had wealthy parents and became pregnant after having sex with her long-time boyfriend. Open arms greeted the first woman because her peers understood, the clinic doctor understood, her partner's parents understood. "Unwanted pregnancy happens to people like you," they seemed to say. But my friend at Penn encountered a very different scenario. No one wanted to acknowledge that pregnancy could happen to her, as well. It wasn't that she had no where to turn. The Women's Center -- which provides safe-sex literature and condoms -- offers a wide range of counseling services since many of its staff members are social workers and psychologists. And Student Health Services can give the necessary medical care. Emotional support was, and still is, there. Only it isn't as glaringly obvious as it is outside of the university setting. So it wasn't that my friend at Penn had nowhere to turn -- just nowhere to hide from the truth: pregnancy happens and there are campus organizations that can help in making decisions for the future. Since there is no conversation, it is time to begin one. Forget the ideology that says a higher SAT score correlates to some type of invisible barrier from misfortune. A condom is still 3 percent ineffective no matter who's wearing it. An abortion will still cause psychological, if not physical, pain. Drunken escapades or irresponsibility can lead to pregnancy, end of story. In the same moment that one can put aside such reservations concerning the supposed differences among women who become prematurely pregnant, it is also possible to erase those assumptions involving all college students. While there is a definite strong stigma against those college women who become pregnant, their partners rarely, if ever, feel the same sense of shame. Or, in the case of many male athletes, we look the other way in the name of good sportsmanship. Keith Van Horn at the University of Utah, Larry Bird at Indiana State and Antoine Winfield at Ohio State University all fathered children during their college years and no one blinked an eye. The double standard could not be more apparent, for women in the same position would be forced to endure the public's scrutiny rather than its apathy as the whispers of disapproval lurk in the halls of higher learning. Last year, both my friends said they wanted to scream in the early stages of their pregnancy, but for very different reasons. Both wanted to voice their fears, but only the one at Penn truly felt that she was alone. She was wrong. And although she couldn't scream at the University, we can at least end the strained hush. We can at least acknowledge her and others in her position and understand that pregnancy at Penn is a reality and not a myth.