Womens' History

Or should that be HER story?
Anyway...
Tonight was my last class. As I am auditing, I won't be going in next week to take the final. Interesting conversation tonight...
We covered womens' roles and major events in womens' history during the 40s, 50s and 60s. Of course, along the way, the subject of reproductive rights (aka abortion, reproductive choice, etc, ad nauseum) came up. I was pleasantly surprised...and yet, also worried.
This is a class of 7 women, including myself. (There was a man, but he gave up early!) I am the only one over 40; one is about 30, and the rest are just out of high school. They all knew that Roe v Wade allows for abortion through the third trimester. None knew that abortion is now allowed through the entire 9 months of pregnancy. They didn't like that. They didn't think mental health should be an issue; they didn't see that as life-threatening, as a reason to say, "Health of the mother!" in allowing abortion. They didn't want 14 year-olds having abortions, and they didn't want dads to be unaware of abortions happening to their children.
These things surprised me, in a pleasant way. This isn't a generation willing to march into clinics and end young lives. These women all spoke of personal responsibility, of educated choices, of not engaging in activity that could lead to consequences they might not like.
And yet...they didn't seem to realize that these things are happening. That 14 year-olds are having repeated abortions. That 21, 27, 30 year-old men can be impregnating these young girls and escaping consequences because of abortion clinics. They didn't know that a woman can say, "I'm afraid of having a baby," and someone will call that "threatened mental health," and take her to a clinic because "her life is in danger." How can people be so unaware?
And yet, they didn't like it. They weren't willing to stand for it, to participate in it, to just roll over and accept it. And that's what surprised me so pleasantly. Maybe the upcoming generations ARE OK, after all.