How Abortion Laws Are Shaping My College List

I’m officially a rising senior! This past week, I completed my last final (all done with Multivariable Calculus!) and watched the Class of 2025 walk the stage, ready to start a new chapter of their lives. I’m on summer break, and as I begin the college search, exploring what I want my undergrad experience to include, I’ve set a hard boundary for myself. I want to go to a college located in a state where I can maintain complete autonomy over my body, and I’m not going to settle for anything less. 

As someone who was raised in California, I’ve always felt reassured to know that my state has my back, with strong laws in place protecting my reproductive rights. I’m privileged to have this status, to know that if I get sexually assaulted and a fetus forms, I can get an abortion and retain control over my life. 

I’m not expecting college to be a walk in the park (and I’d be disappointed in myself if I wasn’t actively pursuing challenging opportunities). Still, I don’t want to add to my mental turmoil by being in a space where I don’t have easy and safe access to an abortion. Additionally, and horrifyingly, what’s referred to as “The Red Zone” is a common phenomenon in a majority of college campuses. (The term labels a period of increased sexual assault incidents in the fall semester that disproportionately impact first-year female students.) I want to be reassured that, if the worst were to happen, I can easily get an abortion and retain control over my bodily autonomy. 

This graphic is found in a New York Times article titled “Tracking Abortion Laws Across the Country,” which also lists additional details regarding each state’s abortion status.

As I research colleges, I’m staying strictly within states where abortion is legal, as visualized in the green areas of the map above. I’m keeping my best interests in mind, as I will not put myself in a state where the law treats pregnant women as secondary to their fetuses.