Students for Life is Helping a Young Mom Finish College After Launching ‘Pregnant on Campus Initiative’
“I don’t like to imagine my life without my son or my education. In fact, it breaks my heart knowing at one point I had to choose between the two.”
Students for Life of America (SLFA) has stepped in to help one young mother finish her education after she lost her financial aid due to her pregnancy with her son.
Ruth Asmarzadeh felt pressure to have an abortion but chose life. In the process, she lost her financial aid to Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado and couldn’t reschedule her exams.
Asmarzadeh asked SFLA for help, claiming the school violated her Title IX rights:
“I don’t like to imagine my life without my son or my education,” she told Fox News. “In fact, it breaks my heart knowing at one point I had to choose between the two.”
She said she felt “helpless” when she lost her financial aid and wasn’t able to reschedule her exams, so she reached out to the pro-life organization, which helped her get financial aid back — and threw her a baby shower. This week, SFLA surprised her with $6,000 to ensure she could finish her education.
SLFA president Kristan Hawkins called Asmarzadeh, who is currently working three jobs, to let her know about the surprise after the group launched a national campaign, the “Pregnant on Campus Initiative,” to help pregnant and parenting students get the resources they need on campus.
“One of the things we always say at Students for Life is no woman should have to choose between her education and her child,” Hawkins told Asmarzadeh. She also informed Asmarzadeh about the fundraising page reaching the amount she needed to get her degree and “the job of her dreams.”
“Thank you. I’m honored and grateful for all of this,” Asmarzadeh said, as her son, Eli, could be heard talking in the background. “I’m sure he will be very thankful when he’s able to understand one day. Thank you.”
SFLA told the school it violated Asmarzadeh’s Title IX rights since students “cannot be discriminated against or face the loss of scholarships, housing, athletic eligibility or an opportunity simply because of their pregnancy or parental status.”
This is why SFLA has chosen to educate students with its “Pregnant and Parenting Bill of Rights.”
The organization will provide the students with support along with “legal assistance from Alliance Defending Freedom.” Here are a few points:
- Pregnant students cannot be barred from activities enjoyed by fellow students, including but not limited to club memberships, academic programs, and intramural activities.
- Pregnant students should not be barred from utilizing campus housing and, upon birth of her child, should be permitted to make her own decision about off-campus housing.
- Pregnant students cannot have their academic or athletic scholarships revoked due to pregnancy or be subject to penalty regarding any other type of financial aid.
- Professors and other staff may not punish pregnant students as a result of a medically necessary absence. Concessions must be made to re-take tests and complete other assignments if necessary.
SFLA will provide materials to its 1,220 groups and chapters across the country so they can inform students and administrations on the rights of pregnant students.
[Featured image via Facebook]
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Comments
The only negative I see is that sooner or later, some college is going to get “triggered” and try to stop this great act of love.
Asmarzadeh is 100% correct in claiming the school violated her Title IX rights.
Make the criminal Leftists live up to their own Rules!!!!!!!
“One of the things we always say at Students for Life is no woman should have to choose between her education and her child,” Hawkins told Asmarzadeh.
Sounds like she already made that choice. Pregnancy isn’t something that happens randomly, like lightning strikes or retinal cancer. There are things she deliberately has to do—and things which have nothing to do with her education—and she did them. Hence, she made her choice.
This fantasy that free choice are actually impositions by malevolent outside forces is one of the roots of modern Liberalism, but it has little to do with anything sensible.
Her choice to get pregnant (even if we assume she made one) is irrelevant here. At the point this paragraph is discussing she was pregnant, and the school was making her choose between her education and her child, unjustly (and apparently illegally) telling her she could not have both.
Can we pander anymore?? If you want something done try making sure every boy a male role model grandfather, father, uncle not a mentor in their life. Not every boy gets that and the arrest record for those boys are higher.
That’s great. Now what do you want to do about those children who don’t have that. Kill them?
I am pro-choice. It’s probably the most unreconstructed liberal viewpoint I have on a diminishing list of them. I find abortion distasteful, and in view of the advances in birth control in recent decades view them as something of an I.Q. test. But I also think abortion before the third trimester should be no one’s business. Freedom isn’t just the freedom to do things that I approve of.
That said, things like this make me admire the pro-life side. I also think they should do a lot more to facilitate adoptions. I’d be 100% supportive of such efforts.
I hear your point but abortion is abhorrent. I say that as someone who once fully supported it. But now we can see inside the womb and watch the baby recoil as it is ripped up.
I believe if it were not for the trillions made from abortions that we would have come up with a humane and effective birth control solution worthy of the 21st century.
What’s wrong with the birth control solutions we have now?
Like constitutional amendments, it must be used to be worth anything.
I don’t believe that “trillions have been made from abortions.” For starters, they’re not that expensive. And however much they cost, costs aren’t profits.
Also, I have never “supported abortion.” I don’t think the government should be involved. My willingness to go along with a third-trimester prohibition except to save the life or physical health of the mother is in recognition of the intense ethical opposition to it.
I don’t really find it abhorrent, but I do find it distasteful, which is a lesser reaction. That said, I respect the views on the other side. It’s a hard issue.
Nice story! Thanks. God bless her and those who helped her.
The pro-lifers have always had their hearts in the right place. I’m glad to see them taking these very positive actions as a result of their ideals. This is a way of constructing a culture of honoring life.
I do remain pro-choice. It’s a matter of recognizing the consequences of a grant of power to the State. The lives of our children are too precious to be put at the mercy of an Adam Schiff or AOC.
Right now, in the United States, an abortion cannot happen, absent the consent of the mother. Give the States the power to wholly deny abortions, and they may pass laws banning it. And then, one fine day, some legislature will get the notion to compel abortions, and the courts will let them do it.
Anybody who thinks it cannot happen here hasn’t been paying attention. China coerced abortions for decades, and now they have a population imbalance.
Right now, in our House of Representatives, we have a bastardized “impeachment” “process” with “secret” interviews that lack the normal protections of due process, and produce selective leaks. The White House counsel is barred from the proceedings. The minority party is barred from issuing subpoenas, and asking pertinent questions. The minority party has less time to ask questions. The majority party coaches witnesses during live testimony, meets in secret with witnesses prior to testimony, and lies about meeting in secret with witnesses.
Given the perversion of the current House of Representatives, I’d rather leave the decision in the hands of the pregnant woman. It’s the difference between retail and wholesale.
By your exact reasoning all murder should be legal, because if we let the government forbid murder then one day it will instead compel it.
Valarie has proof of a culture/state/ political bent, that compelled abortion of females and limited families to one female child. I cannot remember a state that compelled murder, except the individual states after conviction of certain crimes. But yes, exact reasoning would lead to that conclusion.
Yes it is a cold and stormy night so I am wasting time with this post.
Not only that, abortion was illegal for decades and I don’t recall any state, county or city making it mandatory.
“”It’s the difference between retail and wholesale.””
No, it’s the difference between a live baby and a dead one. Funny how you abortion enthusiasts seem to forget that little detail.
“”The lives of our children are too precious to be put at the mercy of an Adam Schiff or AOC.””
Much better to put them in the hands of a Gosnell, you think?
I cannot find a tip jar, but it seems like a worthy cause for support, until it asks for and gets govt grants.