COLUMN: Abortion in a new generation

From Marisa Katz's, "Ineluctable Modality of the Visible," Fall '98 From Marisa Katz's, "Ineluctable Modality of the Visible," Fall '98It was getting on midafternoon and Ricki was still collapsed on the bathroom floor. Green-tinged and nauseous, she moaned about a breaking condom. I wasn't sure what had happened. But she needed support, not a challenge. But a pill from Women's Health put a stop to what would have been a disastrous trajectory. In less than 24 hours, Ricki's color was restored and she went back to Calculus homework and the normal worries of a college student. The University has seen an increasing number of female students making a similar decision to use RUD-46, the "morning after" pill that must be used 72 hours after conception. The Women's Health Center administered the pill 485 times in 1996. And according to Women's Health Coordinator Deborah Mathis, Student Health has sold an increasing number of pregnancy tests in the past few years, though the percentage of positive pregnancies has remained steady at 10 percent since she began working there in 1989. The clinic also recently began tracking the decisions of women who received abortion counseling after having a positive pregnancy result. According to the data, approximately 55 percent of women chose to terminate the pregnancy, with the remaining 45 percent choosing to carry their pregnancies to full term. We are of a generation that has never known the horrors of coathangers and back-alleys. We can't even imagine not being able to get contraception, not having access to abortion. And we don't realize how much the right of women to control their reproductive lives remains central to their ability to participate fully in America's economic, social and cultural life. The result: complacency. The abortion-rights movement can no longer count on the support of young women. In the Higher Education Research Institute's latest annual survey of incoming freshmen, 54 percent of the 252,000 students polled supported keeping abortion legal. That was the lowest level of support for legal abortion since 1979 and marked five straight years of decline. "There's a lack of awareness," said College sophomore Hema Sarangapani, chairperson of Penn's chapter of the National Organization for Women. "Even some of my roommates, who are very feminist, say, 'Well, Roe v. Wade isn't going to get overturned anytime soon, so why work so hard?'" But the landmark court decision is far from secure. The past 25 years of litigation, clinic bombings and political struggle have taken their toll. The current campaign in Congress against so-called "partial birth abortions" is the latest blow against abortion rights. The 1992 Supreme court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey diminished the right to abortion under Roe by opening the door to greater government intrusion before fetal viability. Since then, dozens of states have passed laws creating waiting periods, requiring parental notification and banning certain types of procedures. Pennsylvania's four-year-old abortion law requires females under the age of 18 to receive abortion counseling and written parental consent before having the operation. This legislation may have directly led to the recent decrease in the number of abortions performed in the state. In 1995, Pennsylvania abortions fell to the lowest level in the 20 years statistics have been kept, dropping more than 6 percent from their 1994 level. And the number of abortions in Philadelphia County decreased from 15,319 in 1994 to 14,723 in 1995. If the trends continue, legal, safe abortion will cease to be available in some parts of the country. Already there is no abortion provider in 84 percent of counties in the country, and between 1982 and 1992 the number of providers dropped in 45 states. And only 17 states have Medicaid-type funding for poor women seeking abortions in cases other than rape or incest or when the life of the woman is endangered. In the face of this imminent threat, we cannot be content to stand behind the promises of 25-year-old legislation. We need to come together to develop a comprehensive women's health agenda -- one that includes abortion. Young pro-choicers need more opportunities for direct involvement. The movement needs to reach out -- not in the language of 1973, but in terms today's young women can understand. Otherwise we may end up in back alleys.