Abortion rights ruling will have a long-lasting effect on younger generations

The historic Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights will have the most long-lasting effect on the younger generation.

Some parents and students taking campus tours of San Diego State University Friday offered their opinions.

Yveene King is the mother of an incoming freshman. She said: “It’s horrible that these justices are imparting a law on other people’s right to privacy.”

Eneyka Phifer-Bone is an SDSU senior studying nursing. She’s on campus for summer classes.

“If they can attack a woman’s body, they can attack a lot of other things,” Phifer-Bone said. She has plans to pursue graduate school and own a medical practice in women’s health care someday to educate patients faced with terminating a pregnancy.

“It’s not easy to be a parent," she said. "And people who have to make those decisions — I’m sure it doesn’t come from a lighthearted place.”

San Diego State University President Adela de la Torre released a written statement late Friday in response to the ruling, calling it a “monumental setback.”

De la Torre also wrote that “as a woman of color and as a mother to daughters, I take today’s ruling very personally. Not for any impact it will have on my own personal circumstances, but for the pain and danger this ruling can cause for those without the means or support systems to travel to states like California.”

The ruling was also on the minds of job applicants at a job fair on the campus of the San Diego Unified School District’s Education Center on Friday. They attended looking for employment and knowing that they could have to address the ruling with students this fall.

Jacob DeGering is credentialed to teach world and U.S. history in middle schools. He has a clear teaching strategy for this issue.

“I give them the information to create their own dialogue, and then I encourage them to take that outside of the classroom, including talking to their parents as well as the community,” DeGering said.

In May after a draft of the Supreme Court ruling was leaked, the San Diego Unified Board of Education passed a resolution that said in part that “the district will continue to be a champion and leader of health equity and reproductive rights freedom for all.”