The relationship between Generation Z and abortion is much different than it is for those of us who grew up with protections afforded by Roe v. Wade.
They have been handed the collapse of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a woman’s right to have an abortion, and now they must make sense of the wreckage. They’re also coming of age in a world shaped by school shootings, climate disasters, political gaslighting, and a patchwork of abortion bans that leave many of them wondering whether parenting—or surviving—is even a viable option.
When I speak with younger patients or activists, I hear people who don’t separate abortion from climate change, racial justice, or police violence. They see the connections because they’re living them.
My Own Story
I came of age in South Central Los Angeles, where access to healthcare was a constant fight. The neighborhood I grew up in didn’t have easy access to the kind of care people in wealthier zip codes take for granted. That’s part of why I stayed in L.A. for medical school, training at institutions built to serve Black and Brown communities like the one that raised me.
In California, I learned how to provide abortion care in a state where the law, for the most part, respected my patients’ rights and my clinical judgment. But when I moved to Arizona in 2009, I entered a very different reality.
I opened my clinic, Desert Star Institute for Family Planning, in 2013, not because it was easy but because it was necessary. Arizona is hostile ground for abortion providers. Every year but one from 2009 to 2022, lawmakers passed new restrictions designed to shame, delay, or block access to abortion care.
When people talk about Roe v. Wade as if it were settled law, I don’t share their nostalgia. For many of us—and certainly now for Gen Z—it never felt settled.
Abortion Access and Climate Anxiety
In a 2024 Arizona Republic piece, a high school senior explained why she couldn’t picture herself becoming a mom. It wasn’t just about abortion access—it was about climate collapse and the fear of raising children in a world that feels unsafe.
That story echoes what I’ve heard in my exam rooms: when the future feels this fragile, many choose not to bring new life into it.
In an Arizona State University survey of young voters aged 18–29, 72% of Arizonans in that age group rated reproductive rights as “very” or “extremely important,” followed closely by climate change at 62%.
That overlap matters.
Gen Z has grown up watching the world catch fire, literally and politically. They know that abortion is not just about whether someone can or should become a parent. Should someone be forced to give birth in a world that may not support them or their child, or even protect the planet they inherit?
The abortion decision becomes a climate decision, a housing decision, and a personal financial security issue.
That intersection is the core of reproductive justice, the framework I turn to, which includes the right to have children, not have children, and raise those children in safe, sustainable communities.
Reproductive Justice in a Generation That Won’t Settle
Some people still cling to the “pro-choice” label like it’s a lifeboat. But for Gen Z, the binary of pro-choice versus pro-life doesn’t hold. They’re not here for lukewarm slogans or sanitized politics. They show up with bolder language and frameworks that guide us to demand more of society.
I’ve written about this shift in Undue Burden. We don’t need more euphemisms. We need truth. Abortion is healthcare. It is a moral obligation, and it is necessary.
A Different Political Lens
A Tufts University survey following the 2022 midterm elections found that Gen Z voters, defined here as ages 18 to 25, were more likely than Millennials (ages 26 to 29 in the same sample) to cite gun violence and racism among their top three concerns. Millennials, by contrast, ranked inflation and housing higher.
These differences reflect how each generation came of age. Millennials inherited 9/11 and the Great Recession. They’re trying to buy homes and raise families. Meanwhile, Gen Z grew up with school lockdown drills and police killings live-streamed on social media. Today, the federal government is revoking rights we’ve taken for granted all our lives, including the right to even exist in this country.
And yet, when Gen Z doesn’t vote, it’s rarely out of apathy. They’re less likely than Millennials to say their vote doesn’t matter. More often, they say they didn’t know how to register or didn’t get the information they needed in time. That’s not a failure of values. That’s a failure of outreach.
From Abortion Rights to Reproductive Justice
The language I use in my work has shifted over the years. I no longer identify as “pro-choice.” I’m pro-abortion and firmly rooted in a reproductive justice framework.
That means understanding that abortion access is just one part of a larger whole. It’s about the right to have children, the right not to have children, and the right to raise those children in safe and sustainable communities.
Gen Z understands this. Their advocacy connects abortion access to climate collapse, economic injustice, and racial violence because all of it shapes our reproductive lives.
When a young person tells me they don’t want to parent in an unstable world, I don’t hear selfishness. I hear someone demanding more from the systems that claim to serve them.
