By Paige Nelson, YWA Ambassador
Imagine yourself at twenty-years-old living on your college campus. After taking a pregnancy test, you are completely overwhelmed by the results and unable to face your new reality. In an attempt to find sanctuary and collect your thoughts, you wander into one of the bathroom stalls between classes. You can’t help but notice a pro-abortion flyer hanging on the stall door. Without taking time to do research or consider other solutions, you follow the website and order your at-home-abortion pills with the click of a button. This is the reality that young women all across our country are facing in a post-Roe America.
After the historic overturn of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, the pro-life movement has not stopped fighting to make abortion unthinkable. From different interest groups lobbying at the state and federal level, to the March For Life sweeping across our nation, and prayer groups continuously showing up outside abortion clinics, there is a lot of momentum and much to be celebrated.
But while we have the court working in our favor, the other side has a tight grasp on my generation, the young voters of America, and they aren’t letting up either. The new push is to get women to perform DIY abortions at home with the abortion pill. Once the pill was deemed safe by organizations like Plan-C and Planned Parenthood; young women are no longer getting access to any care and instead are receiving life threatening medication over the counter and in the mail.
The hearts and minds of our young women need to be changed. We have grown up in a world where we were told that abortion is a constitutional right and that having this right taken away is a step back in women’s fight for equality.
It isn’t enough to just outlaw abortion. We need to teach women why abortion is morally and ethically wrong, and why our most vulnerable population deserves a chance.
I am a recent graduate of the University of Utah where the school has recently been promoting information on the abortion pill in women’s restrooms across campus. Inside each stall hangs a flier that reads, “Need to be un-pregnant?” And a QR code that sends women to plancpills.org.
The definition of “pregnant” according to Google is “having a child or young developing in the uterus.” I find this interesting because the same group claiming that this is a safe and harmless procedure is actively admitting that they are intentionally killing a child in the womb. I would not consider genocide to be safe and harmless.
According to a 2020 study by the Pew Research Center, 57% of women getting abortions are in their twenties. This means that a majority of these abortions are coming from college-aged women. To be influencing them into a life-changing and a life ENDING procedure in the stalls of the restrooms on campus is absolutely disgusting.
There is no encouragement by the “pro-choice” side of the battle for a woman to keep her baby. It’s always that women need abortions and women need access to become un-pregnant.
The truth about the at-home abortion “pill” is that it is actually a series of pills that a woman takes over the course of a few days. When she takes the first pill, the growth of the fetus is stunted, ending the supply of hormones and making the uterus uninhabitable. Then with the second pill the child is disposed of in a similar fashion to a miscarriage.
When we think about mothers who go through miscarriages, we get extremely disheartened. There may not be anything more heart-wrenching than a mother losing her child. To allow young women who are emotionally distressed and lacking proper support systems to simulate such a traumatic process all alone is a disgrace to womanhood and should outrage feminists nationwide.
If this reaches one expecting mother considering abortion, I want you to know this:
I am a twenty-year-old woman fighting for life. I am fighting for life, not because I want my rights to be taken away, but because they were never my rights to begin with. You are in a position right now where you have the chance to raise a beautiful son or daughter. And I know it can be scary, and you may have a lot of doubts. But I guarantee there are not only resources, but people who want to help you through this.
If you decide you aren’t ready to raise a child, I know for a fact there are couples waiting for the day to adopt a newborn to call their own. Once you find the right family, you will find comfort in knowing your child will be raised in good hands.
Life is full of unexpected turns. But please trust me when I say, you will never regret following through with your pregnancy. This will make you mentally and physically stronger, and you have the pro-life movement backing you the whole way.