America’s youths are under attack

Last month, my daughter turned 2 years old, and while I don’t yet have to explain it to her, she is growing up in a world where she has fewer rights than I did. She, like so many other young people in this country, will have to face the consequences of right-wing, anti-abortion extremists attacking her bodily autonomy and violating her reproductive rights.

Abortion bans aren’t new — for my whole life, the Hyde Amendment has prevented low-income folks from obtaining abortion. But one year ago, on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that opened the floodgates for an unprecedented human rights and reproductive justice crisis. And it’s young people — most of all young folks living in the South and Midwest — who are suffering the most.

Since the Supreme Court overturned more than 50 years of legal precedent set by Roe v. Wade and erased our federal protections, ultra-conservative politicians have bulldozed through more than a dozen abortion bans that have gone into effect throughout the United States. They have enacted severe restrictions on access to reproductive care, including medication abortion, as a direct result of the Dobbs decision. We have heard story after story about how this has impacted communities — from people being forced to deliver stillborns to the criminalization of those self-managing their abortions and the people who help them, the rights of people across this nation are in danger like never before.

What many don’t realize is how severely young people are affected. Their rights are in crisis, and we need policymakers to open their eyes.

Restrictive abortion policies harm everyone, but they are especially harmful to young people, who are coming of age in a time when their elected leaders want to control them — not work for them. Almost 350,000 people under the age of 18 become pregnant each year, and 31 percent of them choose to have an abortion; all the while, attacks on contraception have not ceased. Young people who are pregnant deserve the rights and resources to make the decisions that are best for them, whether that means becoming a parent or having an abortion.

Conservatives are in full attack mode against young people’s autonomy, whether to learn real history in school, express their gender identity in peace and dignity, or end a pregnancy. Thirty-six states now force parental involvement in a young person’s abortion decision, adding more obstacles to young people when it comes to their bodies and their futures. It’s also becoming clear that, while some people are able to leave their state to seek abortion care, many abortion seekers cannot, and these abortion seekers are disproportionately young people.  

Isolating young people and attempting to control them is how authoritarians hold onto power. Even in states with fewer restrictions on abortion care, significant barriers still exist. In California, for example, the cost of an abortion pill is between $500 and $1,100, which many young people cannot afford without financial assistance. Simply put, without expansive federal protections, no one is safe.

But young people aren’t the victims in the story, they are the heroes. And there is no greater challenge to the rising threat of authoritarianism in this country than the power of young people.

Young people are continuing to step up to the plate, leading in their communities to demand change. They will not allow attacks on their rights to go unchallenged. Motivated by access to critical health care, young people turned out in record numbers in the 2022 midterms, like 19-year-old Giana Formica, who was a first-time voter and sought to defend her reproductive rights. They are organizing on college campuses, like Faith Garcia in California, who is organizing to make medication abortion free at CSU and UC campuses. And they are speaking up to those in power, like Delaney Jones, who advocates for expanded abortion access across Kansas.

In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, voters have demonstrated their support for expanding abortion access. In fact, 61 percent of Americans say they support abortion rights. In states like Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan and Montana, voters rejected policies that would restrict abortion access, and right now, we are working to secure abortion access as a constitutional right in Ohio as well. All of this is due to the important work that young activists and organizers are doing on the ground, day in and day out. This fight is not possible without young people.

Roe v. Wade set a groundbreaking precedent for abortion access in our country 50 years ago, but we know that it was never enough. It didn’t take into account the daily needs of young people in accessing abortion care. Now that Roe is no longer, they want more, and they deserve better. Young people have never been passive in this fight, and the rest of us can’t be either. While extremist lawmakers continue on their path of destruction, young people are leading the way and sounding the fire alarm on the urgent need to restore — and expand — their rights. It’s time we listen to them.

Kimberly Inez McGuire is executive director of URGE: Unite For Reproductive and Gender Equity.