Wash Post Article: Roe vs. Wade decision impacts college decisions

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
225

Yes, infertility medicine will be affected, and treatments for potential parents who carry the genes for devastating diseases. If a “right to life” is granted at the moment of fertilization, IVF and PGT (preimplantation genetic testing) are impossible. No fertility clinic is going to be able to operate under the threat of murder charges for discarded blastocysts and embryos. Nor will infertility and PGT specialists want to transfer weak, damaged or genetically faulty blastocysts/embryos into women’s uteruses.

IMO, any state considering personhood of fertilized eggs is headed for dystopia. I would not want my kids in college there for their sakes, but also because I don’t see how they will attract decent professors who want to be there. Imagine you went the hard and competitive road to earn a PhD and get a job as a professor. Now, you want to start a family, but you find out that you and your husband both carry the gene for Tay Sachs (which runs in my family—my sister has it). You do not want to risk watching your beautiful baby slowly deteriorate, regressing, having seizures, suffering until they die as a toddler. So, you decide to do IVF. Your eggs will be retrieved and fertilized in a lab, then tested with PGT. Only the strongest of the blastocysts lacking the gene will be considered for transfer to your uterus. But if you live in a state with prenatal personhood, you will have no options other than risking Tay Sachs or moving.

Maybe these states will exempt IVF/PGT from their laws by saying that a blastocyst/embryo only has a right to life when it is already in the mother. This would be extremely hypocritical.

Infertility is very common. It’s also likely that one or two of my kids and their cousins are Tay Sachs carriers. Having control over their fertility, and healthcare while pregnant, is a top priority for all of them. Two of them are also gay/bi. They would rather go to community college and transfer, or choose the cheapest in-state option, than feel their options in family planning will be curtailed by state laws.

25 Likes
226

Yes, this is all too new. As of now, full pay families who are sending their children to red state colleges are thinking that they can get them out if needed. Same goes for how the new laws will impact someone’s life or not. IVF and genetic testing can be done abroad or in a different state. Where I see this possibly having an impact in where people move is pregnancy care.

I forgot that there were 2 colleges in states with more restrictive laws that DD22 was seriously considering. Both schools with a high proportion of full pay blue state students. I suppose we are all thinking the same thing - can afford to get our daughters help if needed. All it takes is one or two tragedies or prosecutions to see if the tide will turn.

227

My daughter is dealing with that exact situation.

Not Tay Sachs but another gene mutation. Luckily their embryos in a state that protects them. They are lucky.

It really makes you think about things. My husband doesn’t want me telling my friends because he’s afraid they will be critical of what my kid is going through.

Many people don’t understand

12 Likes
228

Maybe if the potential mother does not need to work, and can pay out-of-pocket about $15,000-30,000 per cycle. Not likely for a professor.

9 Likes
229

There may not be the opportunity to get help in certain situations, like an emergency, for example an emergency associated with an ectopic pregnancy…in some states the ERs will not be able to administer life saving treatment to the pregnant person (which is an abortion). I know that’s low risk in a college aged person, but still.

Seems like we just had a tragedy with the 10 year old living in Ohio who was raped, impregnated, and had to go to Indiana for an abortion. Haven’t heard that any restrictive abortion laws or potential laws have been changed because of that.

9 Likes
231

Indeed. There’s no predicting what will and won’t happen with Roe gone. It seems anecdotally to me, that it hasn’t changed anyone’s mind about where to go to college yet. It’s still wait and see.

2 Likes
232

These Texas parents had to wait for a wanted fetus to die as she wasn’t ‘septic enough’ for an abortion. My daughter wouldn’t be going to Texas for school.

11 Likes
234

She may share her mother’s views on Dobbs, but the girl is still interested in a red-state school that the mother has concerns about.

National Right to Life issued an open letter to state legislators in May imploring them not to legislate as you have described: “We state unequivocally that we do not support any measure seeking to criminalize or punish women and we stand firmly opposed to include such penalties in legislation.”

In time, this will work itself out. The opinion polls provide a positive signal that this will happen.

Pro-life may be popular amongst religious people, but it is not necessarily connected to religion.

1 Like
238

[Deleted]

239

Repost:

Note that responses to deleted posts are also deleted, even if they have a kernel of an on-topic item. The user is welcome to repost the part that is not a response.

Thread put on slow mode until tomorrow.

240

I think it commonplace for parents to have concerns about their kid’s major life choices such as college and parenthood, especially when, like here, those choices have the potential to severely impact their child’s physical and mental well-being. And while we agree that the college ultimately should be a daughter’s choice, IMO, it is well within the prerogative of a mother to “have a long talk about” whether or not it makes sense for her daughter to attend to a school in a state where her daughter’s physical and mental well-being may be at risk, and where females are not treated as equal and autonomous human beings.

After all, just as you feel strongly that a mother should not prohibit a daughter from choosing a school in a state that denies women fundamental healthcare and personal autonomy, the mother and daughter both feel strongly that the state should not prohibit a female from choosing an abortion rather than enduring 9 months of pregnancy, the potential physical and mental heath risks, childbirth, then the burdens of raising a child or putting one up for adoption. I imagine it is much more imminent and personal for them, though.

In my opinion, the NRL statement will largely be beside the point to many college aged women deciding whether to attend college in an anti-abortion jurisdiction. The reason is, whether or not those who would receive abortions are explicitly targeted as criminals, the “punishment” is inherent in purpose of he anti-abortion statutes themselves.

The goal is to stop abortions. For women who might choose abortion, this means loss of physical and mental autonomy; the denial of adequate healthcare; increased medical risk; the costs and burdens of prenatal care and childbirth; the costs and burdens of raising a child or putting a child for adoption. It is an attempt at literal forced labor, and for some small percentage, a death sentence. The explicit aim of anti-abortion statutes is to force women, against their will, to bear the mental and physical risks, costs, and dangers of pregnancy.

That’s why many women, including potential college students, might not want to be in a place where women are or may be denied basic human rights and dignities. And it’s why many young men don’t want to be in a place that would do such things to women. And why mothers and fathers fear for their children and others. And this is even before considering the potential criminal and civil risks faced by doctors, nurses, healthcare providers, friends, advisors, drivers, good samaritans, etc.

(*Another reason why it seems to me to be empty rhetoric is the NRL “Pro-Life” position has fractured and is quickly losing ground to the more absolutist "Abortion Abolition” movement which is pushing for even more draconian bans. The Texas law, which allows private citizen zealots to target other private citizens for “aiding and abetting” is a demonstration of where they are heading, and they consider it only a first step. Surely that is good reason to think long and hard about attending school in Texas.)

Even if this were true, I doubt that is much reassurance to those considering attending college in anti-abortion states in the near future.

As for the opinion polls, public opinion has been moving in the opposite direction as abortion restrictions the past decade, and while that tension may eventually snap and reset, it is likely the situation will become much more volatile and dangerous in the meantime. Again, not much solace for students considering where to attend colleges presently.

22 Likes
241

Personally, I consider this a major issue to look out for. So it’s not “you” who gets pregnant and wants an abortion, but you get asked to drive your friend to the airport to go home for one. Does that get you in legal/financial trouble?

This would affect males and females. On a college campus other folks might, indeed, know what’s going on and some of them could be on the “no abortions” side. Are any of them - or their parents or prayer chain members if they brought it up in a religious group, etc - people who would press the case against someone aiding and abetting? If the student is in state, they’d have nothing helping them. If they were OOS residents, would the law still allow them to be held accountable?

14 Likes
242

These are all valid questions, but the confusion and fear caused by the Texas approach are very much by design. It is a scare tactic. The potential threat of prosecution, lawsuits, and/or civil liability is meant prevent anyone - college student, employer, healthcare provider, volunteer, contributor, uber driver, counselor, professor, parent, etc. - from doing or saying anything that might be construed (or misconstrued) as aiding or abetting an abortion, thus further isolating women and cutting off all avenues to the needed healthcare services. This may be particularly harmful for out-of-state college students (female and male) who may already be geographically isolated from their familial support network.

And because these laws can be enforced by private citizens against other private citizens, the potential for intimidation and abuse is palpable. It doesn’t even matter if the potential lawsuit would have merit if the threat of liability scares people into inaction.

20 Likes
243

@bhs1978 Rather than facepalming my post, can you explain in detail how what I wrote isn’t accurate?

Part of what I’m hearing locally from those who want such an abortion ban in my state is that TX did it very well. They want to have our state copy it because it’s “foolproof.” By financially punishing those who assist, fewer will do so because there can be tattletales anywhere.

What am I missing? Or did you just facepalm because you’re upset that I brought it up? I’m confused.

ps If you’re against abortion, I’m ok with that. Several of my friends and acquaintances are. How someone feels about it isn’t a criteria I have for friendship. I just don’t understand what message you were trying to convey.

10 Likes
244

True, if we wait long enough, there may be enough inertia for a national abortion ban law passed. Then that’ll remove one major factor from my D’s grad school decisions in the next few years.

ETA: To be clear, I’m saying this tongue-in-cheek, but I don’t believe the political climate will get any better.

7 Likes
245

The 1993 film, Rain Without Thunder is not a particularly great movie in terms of direction or acting (though I think it is better than its IMDB rating of 5. I’d probably give it a 7 in that it is not a great film, but it is a very interesting plot). In any case, the premise is remarkably similar to the situation that you are describing. The main character is a fairly wealthy college student whose mother is prosecuted for helping her daughter travel from college over a long weekend in order to obtain an abortion in another country. The mother ends up in jail.

I watched it a really long time ago so I can’t remember whether it is Canada or Mexico where college students with financial means usually travel in the film. It is done in faux documentary style and Jeff Daniels who portrays a legislator or pro-life lobbyist (can’t remember which) is particularly creepy in his certainty that crafting the “fetal kidnapping” law was a stroke of genius because it helped prevent upper-middle class and rich women from circumventing the laws that previously had only really impacted poor and working-class women.

3 Likes
247

Google what you just said. Lyft, Uber, cab drivers are all potentially liable for driving someone to the airport for an abortion in Texas. I assume a private citizen could be too.

As for the rest of your post, I’ll let an actual doctor respond, since medical procedures are well above my pay grade.

7 Likes
248

It was an actual abortion Dr. Who gave me that information.