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Since the Supreme Court overturned\u00a0Roe<\/em> last summer, some states have been weighing and enacting dangerously restrictive\u00a0abortion<\/a> bans. Just last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis\u00a0signed a ban<\/a> outlawing abortions in the state after six weeks gestation (despite the fact that\u00a0nearly a third<\/a> of pregnant people don\u2019t know they\u2019re pregnant until the six-week mark) and forcing people who\u2019ve been raped to provide documentation stating as such if they want access to\u00a0reproductive health care<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Young people, in particular, are taking note of these egregious policies. According to\u00a0a new poll<\/a> from consulting and research firm Gallup, 72% of current college students feel reproductive health laws (in the states in which their schools are located) are at least \u201csomewhat important\u201d to their decision on whether to reenroll. Future college students are paying attention too: 60% of adults aged 18 to 59 (who aren\u2019t currently enrolled) said state policies are \u201csomewhat important\u201d to their decision to enroll in a given school as well. Among people who are factoring state laws into their decisions, 81% of currently enrolled and 85% of unenrolled people said they\u2019d prefer to go to school in a state with \u201cgreater access\u201d to reproductive health services.<\/p>\n Though everyone benefits from\u00a0access to abortion<\/a>, young people do especially. According to\u00a0data<\/a> from the Kaiser Family Foundation, people 29 or younger received 65% of legal abortions in the US in 2020. This could be part of why abortion access is important to people of all political affiliations: The poll found that, among currently enrolled students who think state policies are important, 86% of democrats, 85% of independents, and 65% of republicans prefer states that have less restrictive abortion laws.<\/p>\n Abortion bans could potentially have a devastating effect on the state of education in the US. A\u00a0report<\/a> on the new findings says, \u201cThe potential [for strict abortion laws] to discourage enrollment is especially great in terms of women and young adults\u2014both of whom are disproportionately represented on college campuses compared with male students and those older than 24.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The bottom line: Overturning\u00a0Roe<\/em><\/a> didn\u2019t just make it much harder to access a medical procedure that can be life-saving. For pretty much anyone who can get pregnant (and many who can\u2019t), it changed the way they think about their futures on the whole.<\/p>\n Related:<\/strong><\/p>\n