Sending a kid to college in a state that is trying to ban abortions

Should add both our kids, one male and one female, feel equally if not more strongly than we do as parents. For our family it’s a resounding no.

FYI, I saw this posts on The Latest Posts page, not the Parents Forum.

So is the opposite true? Anyone avoiding states that have expanded their abortion laws, like Virginia?

Personally, I wouldn’t care at all, because that is a very minor factor in selecting a college. Things like academic quality, health care access, safety, recruiting, cost, accessibility, etc. are far more important.

If the people of a state want to run a state in a particular way, that is their business. What I don’t like is when the people who live in a different state want to force their values on them. Would you like Alabama forcing its value on your state?

“If the people of a state want to run a state in a particular way, that is their business”

And for people who choose not to live or go to college or to spend $ or have a business in that state, it’s their business, right? Works both ways.

^definitely but it does seem that the boycotts and outrage only run in one direction. I don’t agree with what Virginia, New York and Vermont have done recently but I’ll still visit NYC and go skiing in Vermont. Just as I’ll still visit Atlanta for my D’s for a volleyball tournament and New Orleans for a Saints game. And you’re really just hurting everyday folks working in the state by not visiting, attending college etc…

If you feel that strongly about a state’s law, I agree you should not send your child there. For me, cost and value outweigh all political considerations.

Health care access is under discussion here.

Maybe just the publicity around them. I have certainly heard of conservative people who would not consider certain states/colleges. Example, we had a young Uber driver in Atlanta who was looking at grad school, and vehemently told us he would never consider the UC system because of Californian politics.

Not a consideration. I have 4 daughters and 3 sons. Four kids out of college, one in college.
Two daughters yet to decide on colleges. They are pro-life, so, no, abortion availability would be about the last thing they’d be looking for in a college.

I asked D20 tonight if she would attend a college in a state that banned abortions and without hesitation she said “no” but she also said that if she was ever in that position in college that she would fly home to CA to be with us, her parents, regardless if her OOS college allowed abortions or not.

There is no way my daughters will go to college in a state that is trying to take away women’s rights and women’s healthcare. Kenyon and Denison are off the list.

Not an issue for us at this point, but would factor into an overall choice about fit.

^^^yes.

In my old age I have decided boycotts of geographic areas probably aren’t a good way to change minds. It is possible to change the culture from the inside, and not always in a confrontational way.

It is easy to avoid those with whom we disagree. Making them our neighbors, and then friends, and spending enough time with them they don’t find our different views as outrageous as they once imagined can be an interesting exercise… in my personal experience. At the least there is an opportunity to support those with minority views, who don’t have the ability to get up and leave a geographic locale.

College students shouldn’t be expected to work for social change, but if they choose to do so I certainly support them.

My kids have both graduated from college. I allowed them to formulate their own lists and make their own choices. Both are somewhat politically aware—S moreso than D.

I think they would have been quite unlikely to have wanted to attend a U in states who have passed restrictive abortion laws.

I don’t think it is unusual to consider a state’s laws as part of the environment. I knew several kids from my daughter’s class who chose Colorado colleges expressly for the purpose of continuing their drug habits, and seem to have settled in well there. That was a priority for them, and it made sense to find a place with lax enforcement or liberal laws so that they had no legal state consequences to their habit.

Agree with @LoveTheBard - go to the state, become politically active and fix it!

Mine are in or off to college and aren’t impacted by this, but they probably wouldn’t choose to take a job and live in a state that restricts reproductive choice. There seems to be a lot of overlap with other issues that concern them, so they probably wouldn’t be clamoring to go anyway.

It’s not a boycott issue, it’s strictly quality of life.

MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I believe my instructions earlier in the thread were clear, yet I was forced to temporarily close the thread this morning to delete posts and warn users for ToS violations. Having done that, I reopened the thread, and within 10 minutes, every new post had a rules violation. Since it’s apparent to me that this thread requires too much time to monitor, it is now closed for good.