UC Berkeley’s shameful abortion debate

“You will pay for this in Hell,” sophomore Adiba Khan hears from a male student while sitting on Sproul Plaza, the entrance to the University of California  Berkeley’s campus.

She is asking for signatures on a petition she wrote to allow the University Health Center to provide medical abortions – a proposal that recently passed the student government unanimously. “I will not be complacent. I know this response means I am doing something right,” she says. 

This is the kind of story we are hearing around the country from communities facing TRAP laws, aimed at limiting access to safe abortions. But this kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen at Berkeley – once nicknamed “Bezerkeley” for its liberal, activist atmosphere. Khan encounters “the same ignorance at Cal as in Oklahoma,” her home state, she explains.

She told me: “There is a mentality here that women must ‘pay’ for their deeds.” The message underlying that attitude is that women who participate in sexual activity deserve to bear the weight of struggle to obtain safe, legal, medical attention. Khan adds that she sees reluctance to open access to choice even by pre-med and pre-health students, a fact she finds “upsetting”.

This is true of a pre-health student I spoke with who is aspiring to be an obstetrician/gynecologist. She was raised in a Catholic and Christian household and has identified as “pro-life” for most of her life.

Now at UC Berkeley and entering her senior year, she labels herself pro-choice, believing that individuals should be able to make their own decisions without intrusion from the government. However, based on her personal beliefs she says that as a practicing doctor she will never perform an abortion.

She said: “I would only feel comfortable within ten days of ‘conception’ pointing women to other doctors or telling them about ‘natural alternatives’ to jump start their periods.”

Many women know these alternatives. They’re the ones that have been whispered between mothers, daughters, sisters and friends from the beginning of time. They can seem gentle, like wives’ tales of increasing Vitamin C and parsley, to the violence of bent metal coat hangers. This response from a Cal student, and a future medical professional, is echoed by anti-choice groups on campus. 

Students For Life At Berkeley is a student run organization that meets regularly on campus. Their public Facebook group has 181 members, where they announce their weekly meeting schedule and members post articles about Khan’s initiative. 

Tomorrow night they are having a meeting in 204 Wheeler “to discuss how we plan to respond to this bill.”

Their last event was a presentation by Camille Pauley of, Healing The Culture, intended to teach students how to convince peers to be “pro-life”. I contacted the group and was forwarded their press statement concerning the initiative.

It begins, “Abortion is degrading to women” and argues that providing abortion access by the Student Health Center “stigmatizes pregnant and parenting students on campus.” They conclude with an offering of “tangible resources for pregnant and parenting students.” These resources include a list of anti-choice counseling outlets for women who are “seeking support as you search for healing and peace after your abortion.”

Khan describes this anti-choice presence on campus as “extremely loud and well funded.” And the attitudes they promote begin to affect women from a young age.

As Khan fights to provide college women with their legal, medical rights, a mile away UC Berkeley’s chapter of Women and Youth Supporting Each other (WYSE) are mentoring middle school girls in Berkeley Unified School District. I volunteer with this group weekly to teach sexual health to young women in the community.

We discuss contraception methods at length, but when it comes to emergency contraception, Plan B, we have to take an extra minute. Even though this is Berkeley, a ‘liberal’ town, we spend time explaining to the girls why Plan B is not the same thing as an abortion.

We illustrate on the whiteboard how Plan B actually prevents pregnancy, and is nothing like an abortion. Although we worry that by drawing such a large division we are adding to the stigmatization surrounding abortion, it is a necessary compromise to avoid losing our position by upsetting parents or the school administration.

The battle over knowledge and access begins at a young age.

Khan explains that even Berkeley is not safe from the “anti-choice culture we live in.” She hopes that by providing abortions, the Campus Health Center will begin to break down the stigmatization surrounding this legal right.

In the future, it is possible that the young women I mentor will not have to endure the same burden to access medical attention. One can only hope that by the time they get to college they won’t have to hear comments about “paying for things in hell.”

But if we want that future, there is plenty of work ahead, even in the places where we thought the fight had been won.