BY JENNIFER RUTH
I had an abortion when I was 20. I was between my sophomore and junior year in college, living in Berkeley, taking a class on existentialism and working at a grocery store. When I realized that I was pregnant, I felt ashamed. I was ashamed of the times I had complacently said, “I wouldn’t get an abortion but I support women’s right to choose.” Faced with my own existential question — will I actively choose the life I want? — the answer was clear. I wanted to finish college, go to graduate school, and become a professor. I was what we called in the 1990s a “women’s studies concentrator” and my dream from day one had been to go on to teach feminist theory classes myself. I also knew that I would not do this if I had the baby. I felt ashamed that I’d ever pretended anything else (“I wouldn’t do it but others should be able to”). I remember thinking that for all my talk as a teenager and then as a women’s studies concentrator, I really didn’t understand what it meant to be a feminist until the day I had to actively choose self-determination over passively letting events unfold.
In “The Motherhood Penalty Begins in College” (Inside Higher Ed, Jun 22, 2022) Natalie Milan, Kaylee T, Matheny, and Ilana M. Horwitz write:
We found that when women must interrupt their education to care for a child, there are lasting consequences: a delayed start to their career, less pre-professional experience compared to their peers and a more fragmented peer network—an important source of job opportunities after graduation, especially for low-income students. Reproductive rights and educational attainment go hand in hand. Any threat to one will have grave repercussions for the other—especially for low-income women who stand to benefit greatly from both.
I was not low income. I was going to one of the most expensive colleges in the country. I also had access to the subsidized services of Planned Parenthood. My journey to get an abortion was a one-hour bus ride. Milan, Matheny, and Horwitz write:
But not all women face [the motherhood] penalty. It is most prevalent among those who lack resources—the same women who are most at risk for an unintended pregnancy. After analyzing semester-by-semester college enrollment data, we found that low-income women were more likely to experience an interruption in their education compared to higher-income women, as well as compared to men of any economic background. Time and time again, we found stories of ambitious women from low-income families whose college dreams were upended when they became pregnant.
The authors offer two policy recommendations for pursuing equity. They propose that “colleges, especially those in states that restrict abortion, can be proactive in supporting their students by instituting an excused-absence policy for those seeking reproductive care. Currently, Title IX only mandates excused absence for abortion in cases of medical necessity, so college faculty can play a key role in expanding this definition classroom by classroom and actively destigmatizing this issue.” For students who choose to continue their pregnancy, they propose implementing parental leave policies and they offer details regarding what those leave policies should include.
Another recent Inside Higher Ed article worth reading today is “Students Demand Institutions Take a Stand on Abortion” (May 17, 2022). Maria Carrasco writes:
At the University of Texas at Austin, which is also in a state that has abortion trigger laws, Caitlin Carroll, an assistant instructor in the sociology department, teaches a course called Fertility and Reproduction, which covers abortion. After the Supreme Court leak occurred May 2, she scrapped her lecture the next day and led a discussion with her class of roughly 100 students about what the decision could mean.
“I have a range of students, from very firmly anti-abortion, pro-life students to a well-known abortion activist as one of my students,” Carroll said. “I can’t say one way or the other how the students in general reacted. I would say for the vast majority of them, they were scared. And they had a lot of questions.”
As for how overturning Roe v. Wade would specifically impact college students, Carroll said young people in college have a lot of resources that other people of similar ages don’t. Still, she noted that many UT Austin students are first-generation students and come from low-income families, where they may not have access to abortion and sexual health resources. She said the decision could impact what birth control method students elect to use, and whom they choose to have sex with.
“There’s definitely programs that are out there to help students, especially in a big city like Austin,” Carroll said. “But how it will affect them—I can see it already affecting their choices … with my students talking to me about getting things like IUDs and other long-acting reversible contraceptives.”
Carroll said she wishes UT Austin was more proactive about abortion issues on campus, including by offering abortion medication at the student health center. She also said the campus could work to deliver emergency contraception like Plan B to students.
Today I have two daughters, one by birth and one by adoption. I would have neither of them if I had not had that abortion at 20. One of them goes to the University of Texas at Austin. If she ever needs an abortion, she knows that I will fly her home to Oregon, where we have expanded access to abortion. Today’s Supreme Court just made the existential gulf between the well-off and those that struggle that much greater. What are we going to do about this new barrier to access to higher education?
Jennifer Ruth is a professor of film studies at Portland State University. She is the author of three books, the most recent being It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022), coauthored with Michael Bérubé.
