May 7, 2003
WHERE PRO-ABORTION SENTIMENT GROWS
Women Deserve Better: Changing the Abortion Debate (Zenit, 5/6/2003)Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life of America, shared her thoughts with ZENIT on pro-life feminism ...
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.
I was stunned by these numbers. They suggest that as many as 34% of women have an abortion while attending college. The decision to give life seems almost never to be taken.
Feminists for Life has some good ideas for how coeds might be persuaded to give birth to some of these children. I hope colleges work with them to give pregnant young women a genuine choice.