In a recent broadcast of his “Focus on the Family” radio program, host James Dobson raised an issue he said had been on his mind for three years. He went on to suggest that strict disciplinary policies at Christian colleges related to unmarried, pregnant women were leading these women to seek abortions.
Dobson said that “dozens, if not hundreds, of young women on Christian college campuses every year quietly get abortions because the cost is so high for her to keep that baby.” He said counseling centers near some of these institutions had alerted him to the problem.
Bruce Peppin, a Focus on the Family staff member, surveyed 22 Christian institutions by phone about their policies regarding pregnant women. On his show, Dobson described the results of the survey, stating that the typical policy is that the female student “is immediately sent home,” that “she loses credits,” and “goes home in disgrace.” Dobson said the young man typically is not identified or, in some cases, not dealt with if he is identified.
Peppin declined to reveal which 22 colleges he called, but said he had contacted a “good majority” of schools in the Christian College Consortium, whose 13 member schools include some of the largest and best-known Christian institutions.
Conflicting Conclusions
Consortium president Carl Lundquist said, however, that what Dobson described as typical policy on dealing with pregnant women does not represent consortium schools. After hearing of the “Focus on the Family” broadcast, Lundquist sought information on this matter from all the consortium schools. Only one of the 13, he said, required immediate dismissal of the student, and even in that case, an attempt is made to offer support and bring her back to school in a future semester.
Lundquist said the different framing of questions might help explain the disparity in the conclusions of the two surveys. While crediting Dobson with raising an important issue, Lundquist said Dobson’s portrayal of the problem is misleading.
Defending his research, Focus’s Peppin said some of the colleges he called were aware of only a few pregnancies in the last several years. He suggested it is unrealistic to think there are actually so few pregnancies and it is a reasonable conclusion that students are having abortions.
If a recent Gallup survey commissioned by the Christian Broadcasting Network is any indication, sexual activity and abortion among evangelical students may be more common than is generally realized (see chart on previous page). Of students identifying themselves as evangelicals, for example, 30 percent said they had had sex with more than one partner, and only 71 percent said they opposed abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.
CHRISTIANITY TODAY contacted six consortium schools, most of whose spokespersons acknowledged they have to address the problem of out-of-wedlock pregnancy every semester. Generally, they deal with students on a case-by-case basis; some said they shunned a policy of immediate dismissal because of the very concern raised by Dobson.
Difficult Issue
While not wanting to contribute to abortion, administrators said they feel a need to take a moral stand against premarital sex. Typically, a pregnant student is asked to move to off-campus housing and to take at least a semester off to have her child and sort things through spiritually and emotionally.
Administrators acknowledge such measures carry overtones of disciplinary action, but contend their purposes are primarily redemptive, not punitive. In all cases, administrators said their policies are applied equally to male and female, though they did acknowledge it is sometimes difficult to determine the identity of the male “without going on a witch hunt,” as one put it.
None of the schools contacted by CHRISTIANITY TODAY had a policy calling for disciplinary action against students who have abortions. One dean of students said, “We believe the consequences of abortion are profound and deep and visible,” adding that such consequences serve as their own punishment.
