UNI students about the things to consider before getting pregnant. Haiselt said UNI has a program called “Empathy Belly”, developed by Linda Ware, which creates a “means for the partners of the pregnant women to feel ‘empathetic’ for the physical and mental/emotional changes that a woman endures during pregnancy,” said Haislet.

“During this program, we emphasize with the students that their current behaviors can affect their pregnancy and the health status of their baby,” Haislet said.

“Half of all pregnancies in the US are considered unwanted,” MacGillivray said. “Some of those unwanted pregnancies will be terminated. Which, like it or not, still is legal in this country. The CDC approach is assuming that all those unknown and unwanted pregnancies will be brought to term.”

The CDC has since responded.

“We weren’t as clear as we hoped to be,” said Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, according to the New York Times. Schuchat said in the same article that she “absolutely respects women” and wants all women to be empowered to make important choices, and that the coverage that porayed the CDC “as only thinking about women as incubating babies was a big misunderstanding of our attitude.”

“Birth control makes me sick, so making people take it wouldn’t work,” said sophomore English major, Caitlin Miller, when asked about the possibility of mandating contraception to all women of child-bearing age.

Senior public relations major Kelli Alexander cited the importance of autonomy for women. “Women’s actions while intoxicated are not because of men or alcohol. Women can be their own person,” she said.

Junior mathematics major Nicholas Mlodzik stressed ensuring the safety of unborn children.

  “All care should be taken to protect the potential development of life and protecting the child from life-altering conditions,” Mlodik said. 

MacGillivray discussed the backlash that she expects the controversial CDC infographic will receive from both men and women.

“I think women are going to be outraged, but I also think women and men are going to find it completely ridiculous and make fun of it,” MacGillivray said. “Some things are so extremely ridiculous that you kind of have to laugh. It is not like we as women are not used to this. We get this all of the time.”