In the debate over abortion rights, any number of factors—political party, religious beliefs, gender—can come into play in determining whether a particular individual considers themselves pro-choice or pro-life.
Those factors may be unsurprising, but what about this factor: a person’s education level? What role does that play in placing someone in one camp or the other in the abortion divide?
A Gallup study recently visited this question and found that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to be pro-choice. Specifically, Gallup reported that 60% of college graduates considered themselves pro-choice while 33% self-identified as pro-life. Meanwhile, those without a college degree were more evenly split, with 46% saying they were pro-choice and 48% calling themselves pro-life. (In each case, some people had no opinion.)
Generally, the trend is clear. People who have less education are more likely to support restrictions on abortion. Those who are more educated are more likely to advocate for access to abortion services.
Effects on College Enrollment
But the intersectionality of abortion and education goes beyond how someone’s educational level affects their views on abortion. Abortion restrictions could influence whether some women enroll in college at all, and also may have other, far-reaching impacts on higher education.
How so?
Research published by the Brookings Institution said that, at a minimum, the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade will over time make its mark on higher education in five significant ways. Those are: reduced college enrollment, particularly for Black women; disruption of training in medical schools; changes in on-campus student health services; reductions in out-of-state enrollment in anti-abortion states; and shifts in faculty location decisions away from anti-abortion states.
All of these are problematic, but perhaps the most chilling is the idea that a lack of access to abortion could force some women—especially Black women—to forgo their dreams of attending college. The Brookings research quoted one study as saying that restrictions that limited access to abortion for those younger than 18 had reduced college enrollment and completion for Black women by 1 to 3 percentage points. And that was just restricting abortion, not eliminating access altogether.
This effect on young women and their college hopes resonates with me because of my own goals early in life to earn a college education and also because of what I saw happening around me in my formative years.
By the time I was 6 or 7, I had already decided I was going to be a physician. In the eighth grade, I entered a program for inner city youth who wanted to go into the health field. In high school, there were a lot of pregnant girls. Some had abortions, others gave birth. I remember watching my classmates’ lives being derailed and thinking even then that whatever I did with my life, addressing teen pregnancy would be an important part of it.
Teen pregnancy is another way in which education intersects with reproductive rights. In many states, sex education that could reduce teen pregnancy rates is non-existent or presented in a way that is ineffective. In Arizona where I live, for example, state funding rules require schools to stress abstinence-only sex education, which doesn’t work.
If we want to help young people, we need to acknowledge that they are having sex. People sometimes are concerned that if we talk to children about their bodies, they are going to have sex earlier. But when we don’t talk to them about their bodies, we put them at greater risk for harm.
And ultimately, as research shows, we put them at risk of having to set aside ambitions of attending college—and maybe not even finishing high school.
The Fight to Change Things
That is no small thing. Attaining an education has wide-ranging positive effects on the rest of a person’s life, such as greater participation in the workforce and economic independence, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
Perhaps it’s unsurprising then that the Turnaway Study from the University of California San Francisco showed that women who were not able to access abortion were three times more likely to be unemployed than those who were able to access one. Their odds of living below the federal poverty line were also four times greater.
It’s quite striking when you think about it. The better educated you are, the more likely you are to support access to abortion services. And the better access you have to abortion services, the greater are the chances you will be better educated.
But what can be done so that fewer women have their educations cut short or put on hold because of laws restricting or prohibiting abortion? The Institute for Women’s Policy Research has some ideas for lawmakers and policymakers that certainly could help:
- States must act to protect access to abortion and combat the efforts to repeal women’s rights to healthcare and reproductive autonomy.
- Congress must act to implement paid leave programs by passing paid leave policies that expand definitions of “family leave” to include pregnancy and birth-related issues.
- Policymakers must ensure that programs like SNAP, WIC, TANF, and Medicaid are available and accessible. (Medicaid, of course, was just recently put at risk of cuts by a bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump.)
Of course, getting enough state lawmakers and members of Congress to take these actions is quite the challenge.
But, considering that the long-term educational and economic future of so many young women is at stake, the effort is worth it.
