Trigger laws add to the stress for college applicants
I’m a rising senior in high school and for the next six months, I am going to be consumed by college applications. My sights have always been set on the Ivies: Columbia, Harvard, Yale, but I’m not perfect and I need my backups. My “safety” schools were all in Texas, my home state. Now, my safety schools no longer feel very safe.
As the early decision deadline looms closer and closer, my stress has become twofold: the anxiety of applications and the anxiety around my vanishing right to an abortion. Outof-state tuition is costly, which was why a lot of my potential safety schools were in-state, but with the war on women’s bodies, this comfort has vanished, too.
I have a new deadline to worry about now: Aug. 25, the day the Texas Legislature can officially enforce House Bill 1280, a “trigger” law that criminalizes abortion with no exceptions for rape, incest, or severe or lethal fetal abnormalities. Along with questions of academics, student life and dozens of other factors in making a college decision, I, and other peers, have to consider access to abortion as one of these pivotal factors when choosing and applying to universities.
One of the most frightening provisions of this bill is the lack of access to abortion in cases of rape. And there’s a lot of sexual assault on college campuses. RAINN, America’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, found that 26.4 percent of female undergraduate students experience sexual assault. The rates for Texas schools are petrifying. For example, a survey done by the University of Texas found that 15 percent of female undergraduate students from UT-Austin reported they had been raped.
I’m scared because access to choices for my body is more criminalized than the actions
of a rapist. Any medical professional performing, aiding or intending to perform an abortion could face civil penalties of no less than $100,000, be charged for a first-degree felony and be punished to life in prison. Sexual assaulters, however, can get out of jail in as little as two to 20 years. This isn’t a war on life. This is a war on bodies. This is a war on victims.
Students in trigger law states are now going to be stuck with either putting their baby in the adoption system (a system riddled with problems) or balancing the lofty job of raising a child while trying to get a degree. Many students will be forced to postpone their dreams of obtaining a college degree. According to a national longitudinal study, studentparents are 10 times less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree within five years than their childless classmates.
Furthermore, an Institute for Women’s Policy Research report finds that over 60 percent of student single mothers live at or below the poverty line because student financial aid programs prevent them from accessing food stamps, affordable housing and other governmental support programs. Single mothers dropping out is common. Only 28 percent of single mothers who entered college between 2003 and 2009 earned a degree or certificate within six years. Not getting a full education leaves young parents and their unplanned children in vulnerable economic situations and less likely to get well-paying jobs.
Although I have the financial means to attend a school out of state, many people don’t have that same privilege. A report done by the Institute for Higher Education Policy found that 95 percent of colleges in the U.S. are unaffordable for low-income students. Given that average in-state tuition for a public four-year degree is $9,212, but $26,382 for the same degree out of state, trigger laws will likely hurt lower and middle-class students the most, deepening the wealth gap and marginalizing low-income people.
Now instead of my safety schools being in Texas, I’m looking at out-of-state options. I don’t want to live under the constant fear of having to go through with an unplanned pregnancy when I’m barely even an adult. Despite my long-standing aim for schools in the Northeast, there was always a part of me that would have felt comfortable in Texas. The reproductive war squashed that.
I still love Texas. It’s been my home for the past 17 years.
I love that it has my family, friends and my beloved dog. I love hiking in the Hill Country, getting lost in its greenery for hours. I love our Tex-Mex food — no state is able to nail this classic Texas staple. I love visiting Fredericksburg with my mom to look at cowboy boots and buy bags of housemade taffy.
Most of all, I love my community, always being able to count on a warm smile and lively conversation when I’m on a walk down my street.
I’m going to have to give this up.