"I want to marry at 23," says Gina, confidently. "I want to be a pharmacist. I will start college at 18, and study for four years. After I finish school, I'll get married. I plan on being a working mom," she concludes. "Even if my husband is a millionaire."
"ABORTION IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT YOU don't know you'll need until you need it," says Martha Swiller, executive director of Planned Parenthood's advocacy project in Los Angeles, who talked to me over the phone as her 11-month-old daughter sang loudly in the background. "It's really not uncommon for people who think they're against abortion, and even activists who picket, to access abortion services, and to justify it by saying their case is different. That's why it's so important for us to advocate for abortion rights. We believe that we need to be a voice for all women — including the women who say they oppose abortion."
Swiller tells the story of an abortion provider who, as she was preparing to perform an abortion, heard her patient call her a "baby killer." "She said, 'Excuse me? Are you sure you want to go through with this?' and then recognized her as one of the regular picketers. And the woman said, 'Well, I'm different. I'm married, I have two kids, and I had an affair, and my husband would kill me if he found out.' The point is that abortion is such a personal thing, it's hard to imagine yourself needing it until you're in those shoes."
She believes that once young women start tuning in to government policy, "They'll be more activist." After all, "They came of age during the Clinton administration, when we could afford to be complacent. But some of the things the Bush administration is doing — not only in terms of abortion, but in terms of birth control and condoms — might scare them into action."
And, as Swiller points out, the news is not all bad — at least not in California, where Governor Gray Davis recently reaffirmed women's dominion over their bodies by signing into law a bill that declares birth control and abortion decisions protected under existing state privacy-rights statutes. Authored by state Senator Sheila Kuehl, the law would override any U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding Roe v. Wade. (Abortion has been legal in the state since 1969, when the California Supreme Court declared the state's law against it unconstitutional.) "It sends an important message," says Swiller, "not only that California is a pro-choice state, and our elected officials need to respect that, but that abortion is a woman's decision. And I think that's what these high school girls are realizing too, that abortion is a decision that's very hard to predict having to make."
Christine Pelisek contributed to the research and reporting of this story.
*The names of the high school and college subjects in this story have been changed for the sake of privacy.
