Sonoma State students condemn ‘horrifying’ opinion on Roe

College is a time for theoretical exploration, but Sonoma State University senior Megan Sprague didn’t need theory to explain the importance of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that gave every woman in America access to legal abortion, but now appears to be on its deathbed.

Sprague herself underwent an abortion eight years ago, when she was 22. It eats at her now to know that other women may soon be denied the option.

“It’s (bleeped) up,” said Sprague, 30, who lives in Santa Rosa. “People should be allowed to choose what happens to their bodies.”

And she is fairly certain that if abortion were illegal in California in 2014, as it may soon be in many states, she wouldn’t be sitting in the shade on a scenic college campus, preparing to wrap up a degree in psychology and embark on a career as a counselor.

“I might still be in an abusive relationship,” Sprague said. “I would have an 8-year-old. And I would be in an abusive relationship with a bipolar alcoholic.”

Those are the stakes now facing young people all over the country, including — at least hypothetically — here at the four-year university in Rohnert Park.

While older women may be stunned that the hard work they put in so many years ago now seems to be unraveling, there was little raging or weeping about Roe v. Wade at Sonoma State after someone had leaked a U.S. Supreme Court draft majority opinion making it appear Roe is on the verge of being overturned.

That decision would strip federal protection of abortions and allow states to establish their own pregnancy laws, a landscape in which college-aged women have never lived, but one many of them have anticipated.

These students mostly approached the news with the weary resignation of a generation that already feels ignored on issues such as climate change, student loan debt and police reform. They were still in high school when Donald Trump was elected president on a platform that elevated white men, and their educational experience has been upended by a pandemic.

“When the problems are built into society, there’s nothing much the individual or collective can do about it,” said Nicole Bloch, 21, of Lafayette. “This is a really pessimistic view. But there’s not much people can do when the government is the problem.”

Asserting their rights

Most women interviewed for this story didn’t sound cowed by this mistrust of authority, though. It’s an age cohort that is comfortable asserting its right to things like mental health support and a living wage — and the right to choose the outcome of a pregnancy.

This is also the demographic that stands to gain the most from immediate access to reproductive services. And nowhere is that truer than on college campuses, where rates of sexual assault tend to be notoriously high and ambitious young women have only begun to ponder motherhood.

“Younger people, this is impacting them at a bodily level,” said Lena McQuade, chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at Sonoma State. “This is being legislated on the terrain of their bodies.”

McQuade’s students clearly know the stories of what came before Roe, when rich women flew to other countries for abortions and the poor had hushed procedures in unlicensed offices or motels or vans.

“It’s gonna go back to coat hanger, raspberry tea days,” said student Maya Silber, 21, of El Dorado Hills.

Few welcome such a reset. The Pew Charitable Trust found in 2021 that 62% of American women favor legalized abortion. And the numbers were higher in the 18-29 age range than for 50 and older.

So there was a sense of mobilization at SSU.

Sunny Urquhart, 20, of Oceanside said she had spent the morning googling how much it would cost her to purchase an IUD — just in case. Jordan Ackerman, a 22-year-old from San Diego, talked about having disposable income for the first time in her life, and how she might donate some of it to women’s rights causes. Silber mentioned buying gas cards for women who had to leave anti-abortion states to have procedures done.

In fact, some framed the impending Roe v. Wade reversal as a potential flashpoint in the abortion debate.

“You had the Black Lives Matter protests,” Ackerman said. “You have all these hate crimes that are becoming more and more common. And the continuous attack on trans people. I feel like for a lot of people, this is gonna be the catalyst.”

Several themes wove through conversations in interviews with The Press Democrat. The students described the American right wing stripping freedoms to suppress the poor; more than one described restricting abortions as a capitalistic cudgel, a method of perpetuating a low-wage workforce through reproduction. People talked about the noisy, unproductive polarization of American politics, and a timid Democratic Party afraid to hit back at emboldened Republicans.

“It’s like we’re moving backward” was a common refrain.

This is an educated slice of an internet-savvy generation, and they came armed with arguments to counter abortion opponents.

Outlawing abortions is good for families?

“People talk about abortions that are a medical necessity,” said Sarah Hunter, 21, of Lancaster. “But women’s mental health is an important factor, too. If you force women to have children they’re not prepared to have, yeah, it’s really not ideal for the child or the mother.”

Someone has to speak for the unborn, who have no voice?

“People talk about the fetus having rights,” Urquhart said. “What about the human being after it’s born?”

Abstinence is the best approach?

“States where they preach only abstinence, that’s where a lot of teen pregnancies happen,” said Marlee Anderson, 21, of Humboldt County. “Because they don’t know what they’re getting into.”

Tyler Delnero and Rafa Reyes wanted their female classmates to know they have allies, so they stood in the bright sun outside the student union with handwritten placards in support of reproductive rights.

“You have the right over what happens to your own body,” said Delnero, a sophomore from Elk Grove. “That is just base medical care. Whether you are a woman, a man, intersex — it doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t think old white men should be making their own laws on women,” added Reyes, a freshman from the small Monterey County town of Gonzalez.

The young men admitted they were looking forward to some spirited debate, even confrontation. But everyone who approached them, they said, had been supportive.

Perhaps that is no surprise. This is a diverse public university in a liberal county in a blue state — a bubble within a bubble within a bubble. Still, the unity and clarity of opinion was striking.

Yes, one 20-year-old student from San Jose said she was pro-life, believing “babies shouldn’t have to be killed.” And several students declined to be interviewed on the subject. But many reacted like Hunter.

“Horrifying,” is how she characterized the draft opinion on Roe.

“That’s a very good word for it,” confirmed her companion, Bloch, nodding her head.

Generation Z

The response here, a mix of defiance and cynicism, is a combination of traits often associated with the youngest American adults. It’s a mindset easily derided by older generations.

“How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches?” Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a 39-year-old lawmaker who is currently under investigation for an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, tweeted Wednesday.

Most college students are properly classified as Gen Z, not millennials. Regardless, Gaetz missed the mark, according to McQuade.

“This tweet sounds quite out of touch with what students today have experienced over the entirety of their lives,” she said. “I’ve seen incredible amounts of courage. I’ve seen how many people are willing to come forward with their stories about abortion, about access to birth control, about sexual violence and discrimination — many of the intersecting issues students face while they’re making some of the most meaningful decisions in life.”

It’s true that abortion rights are unlikely to come under attack in California anytime soon. Here, Gov. Gavin Newsom swiftly circulated a defiant statement Monday night, saying in part, “We have to wake up. We have to fight like hell. We will not be silenced.”

State Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, announced he would join with other lawmakers to “enshrine women’s reproductive rights in California’s Constitution.”

But there is concern for family members and friends elsewhere. If Roe were to fall, according to a New York Times graphic, 27 states could quickly ban abortions, including 14 that might prohibit the procedure even before fetal viability. Several women at SSU said their disgust over Roe’s downfall has nothing to do with their own vulnerability.

“It doesn’t matter to me that it’s not gonna be a problem in California,” Bloch said. “This is about the women in states who will lose access.”

That’s typical of Gen Z, McQuade said. Her students are steeped in social media, a world fraught with anxiety, but also one that encourages empathy by introducing users to the firsthand experiences of people from very different backgrounds.

Young women have played important roles in previous women’s rights movements, the professor said. To discount their ability to drive this one would be a mistake.

“To come full circle back to the quote from the representative, this attempt to disempower people — the majority of whom are young, are women of color, working folks — to elevate oneself is a major piece we have to address,” McQuade said. “I think young people see the lie and the false leadership in these types of tweets.

“It’s a form of disempowerment. And they’re not gonna stand for it.”

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.