Life Stories

An anti-abortion feminist takes her case to Penn.

by Hannah Yi

Armed with the message that one in five abortions in the United States will be performed on a woman enrolled in college, Sally Winn, vice president of Feminists for Life of America, has spent the past few years travelling from campus to campus with a personal message. The D.C.-based group's spokeswoman for the past four years, Winn presented her lecture "Refuse to Choose: Reclaiming Feminism" during her visit Monday to Hillel House at the University of Pennsylvania and her stop Tuesday at Bryn Mawr College.

There, Winn shared personal stories as a way to explain why FFL advocates practical ways to eliminate root causes that push women to abortion. With about 75 students present, she recalled becoming pregnant during her junior year at Indiana University.

"I was absolutely scared to death and I thought it couldn't possibly work out well," said Winn, 33, who's been an activist for nine years. "I looked around and panicked. Where was I going to live, how was I going to pay for things?"

There, pregnant students were not provided campus housing or health care. Abortion, it seemed, was the only solution. At the time, Winn was already living in an off-campus apartment, her grandmother paid her tuition, and her family covered her health insurance. (Winn says FFL also finds that scholarships can be rescinded and students might eventually drop out if they decide against abortion.)

"I didn't have a compelling reason to have an abortion," says Winn, admitting that not all college females have it so lucky, financially or emotionally. "It's important to me that no one else has the same compelling reason — that they feel so trapped so they have to abort."

FFL cites the alarming number of women who choose abortions — in one study, 600 of 3,000 college women had pregnancy tests; half turned up positive, but just six women had babies — as evidence of the lack of resources colleges provide in accommodating students who choose to have a child. Housing, day care and maternity coverage are not provided by many colleges. For instance, Yale University pays for unlimited abortions but not for labor and delivery costs.

The mission of Winn and FFL, which has seemingly avoided high-profile controversy, is to give voice to the silent needs of college females so they can avoid abortions or dropping out of school. It's as easy as providing changing stations in bathrooms or lounges for breast feeding, says Winn, adding that Penn and Bryn Mawr lack such accomodations.

Asked whether the group's name rankles pro-choice feminists, she says, "Look at the people who founded the feminist movement. They were pro-life."