The recent overturn of Roe v. Wade has caused a lot of liberals to think about where they want to live. For example, a new report from Reuters suggests that many high school students in Generation Z are now planning to sabotage their university applications.
They are deciding where to go not based on career prospects or academic rigor but based on the abortion laws of the states where they would be studying.
“Some students [are] rethinking their higher education plans as states rush to ban or curtail abortion, according to interviews with 20 students and college advisers across the country,” Reuters reported.
This is hardly a systematic look at the issue. I would feel much more convinced by data on the number of applications that various schools receive. There has not been any significant impact on college admissions yet, but the idea of the story is that many young men and women want to avoid attending college in states with restrictive abortion laws.
“I’m only in high school right now, and I’m still finding out who I am,” Samira Murad, a rising high school senior, said. “I don’t want to move somewhere I can’t be myself because of laws put in place.”
People go to college to learn and improve their intellectual skills. No one, I hope, goes to college planning on getting pregnant and having quick abortions while studying for an econ exam. Sure, it probably has been done, but the purpose of college is to excel and improve one’s mind, not to have sex so recklessly that nearby abortion services are a prerequisite.
It’s nothing new for students to base college decisions on political party affiliation. But there are limits to how much you can choose your environment and the laws you can live under. In a world full of opinions, graduates are quickly forced to realize that lots of people don’t share their opinions. And it’s not just politics — to this day, the “pineapple on pizza” debate still continues to divide families.
Allie Schachtel, a college admissions counselor in Florida, told Vice News that she is seeing an increase in families taking states with abortion rights into the equation. “I’ve had parents and students say we aren’t looking at any schools in Texas or any schools in Tennessee and Ohio.”
But this entails sacrificing career opportunities. Florida, for example, now has a 15-week abortion ban. But would you forgo a study abroad program in Paris just because France has a 14-week abortion ban?
If you have even a modicum of self-control and can go three or four years without getting pregnant, you might be able to study at a very prestigious college or medical or law school in a state where abortion could soon be strictly regulated. Notre Dame or Texas, for law school or undergrad, Vanderbilt or Tennessee, Purdue, Nebraska, Duke, Indiana University medical school, or the Medical College of Wisconsin … such top schools exist in many states where abortion could soon be limited. Do you really want to jeopardize your education and future job prospects just to make a statement about abortion rights?
It would be terrible if, in the name of abortion, young college girls were to sabotage their own educational and job opportunities for fear of not living near to an abortion clinic that, statistically speaking, they won’t ever want or need anyway.
Esther Wickham is a summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow.
