Published by Women’s Health
Anna always dreamed of the “classic college experience”—going to a big school with a football team and an abundance of school spirit. Her main sources of college information came from her dad, her friends, and what she saw online. “Should I apply to Auburn?” Anna asked her dad one day. “A lot of my friends are.”
Instead of answering directly, he asked if she wanted to spend her college years in a red state. “He was like, ‘You’re a woman; they don’t like you.’ And I was like, ‘Okay. Hyperbolic, but fair enough.’”
The college decision process has always been complex and emotional. High school seniors ask themselves, 'Can I afford tuition? Will I fit in and be happy? How far from home is it? What does my college say about me?' And now, for the first time in two generations, young women are making these decisions in a world where access to reproductive health care is not guaranteed.
It’s been one year since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not protect a woman’s right to have an abortion. In June 2022, the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—a case that dealt with Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban and ultimately challenged the Roe decision—unraveled 50 years of precedence. Since then, 14 states have enacted total abortion bans, and Georgia has put in place a 6-week abortion ban, Nebraska a 12-week ban, and four other states 15- to 20-week bans, according to The New York Times. Ten of those states with total bans make no exception for rape or incest. The battles rage on in state legislatures: Judges in at least six states have temporarily blocked restrictive abortion bans from taking effect, but the legal challenges might not hold for long.
This spring, in a case that might have potentially made the abortion pill mifepristone illegal, the Supreme Court instead issued a stay on a lower-court ruling, allowing the drug to remain legal and available. The SCOTUS ruling also kicked the case back to a lower appeals court.
Pregnant people in red states aren’t the only ones affected. Roe’s overturning has had far-reaching effects across the country, influencing national politics, life, love, art, career, and education decisions.
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“Never underestimate the sophistication of an 18-year-old,” says Nanci Tessier, principal at Art & Science Group, a consulting firm for higher educational institutions, nonprofits, and independent schools. “They think about big questions and big issues that relate to not only themselves as an individual, but also to their world at large.”
States’ constantly changing and complicated rulings on abortion over the past 12 months have been hard to keep track of and confusing. But young people are paying attention, and they’re talking about it. They’re also aware that how a state deals with abortion can be a bellwether for other hot-topic issues: gun control, transgender rights, the status of queer people, and more.
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Advocates for Youth, a group that helps young people promote sexual health and equity, saw membership in its newly created Youth Abortion Support Collective boom since launching in 2020. The group is a network of young people who are experts on abortion resources and options. The roughly 100 to 150 original members now number over 1,000, according to Tamara Marzouk, the director of Abortion Access at Advocates for Youth. “This is a moment where we’re seeing that young people are angry,’’ she said. “And they’re also catalyzed to act.’’
Geography has always played a role in college choice.
But that criteria was usually discussed in relation to travel distance and costs. Today, “geography” often doubles as shorthand for political and social climate.
“We’ve had conversations like, ‘Okay, you’re interested in Northwestern and Boston College. What do you think about Tulane or Duke, or what about Vanderbilt or Rice University?’” McNeil says. “Those schools have been ruled out because they’re in states that have very regressive legislative climates for reproductive rights and for abortion specifically.”
In Austria, Lina realized her college decision couldn’t be based solely on education. “You’re going to be there for at least the next four years, if not the rest of your life,” she says. “And even though you may be accepted and supported and acknowledged in your educational environment, that may not always be the case outside [of it].”
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“We’re all teenage girls, so this affects us,” Anna explains. “You hear of things that happen at colleges, happen at frats, and there’s fear.”