Today I came across a somewhat sad story about how we don't offer more to unexpectedly pregnant college women than an abortion and how it shifts their formerly pro-life viewpoint. From "
Women Deserve Better: Changing the Abortion Debate":
Even as early as 1996 a Gallup poll reported, "Women with a high school education are more pro-life, 47%, than pro-choice, 37%."
But they also found that the college experience for women is "a major -- even revolutionary -- influence" when it comes to their views on abortion: "Women who have attended college but not completed a four-year program are more pro-choice, 59% -- an increase in the pro-choice group of 22 points. The margin of pro-choice over pro-life responses is even greater among women who have completed a four-year college program -- 73% to 24%."
As I began lecturing about our rich, pro-life feminist history I began to ask, "Do you know anyone on campus who has become pregnant?" Audience members nod. Then I would ask, "Have you ever seen a visibly pregnant student on campus?" The nodding stopped.
According to Planned Parenthood's research arm, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 10% of all college-age women become pregnant each year. Where have all the pregnant women gone? Most often, women in college have abortions. In fact one in five abortions are performed on a woman in college.
"They say I have a free choice. [...] It sure doesn't feel like I have much of a choice."
We must redirect the abortion debate by demanding better for women. We should be asking the all-important questions, "What do women want? What do women need?"