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BY JILL BECKERMAN

COMMENTARY

When my mother was a student at the University of Idaho, one of her sorority sisters accidentally got pregnant. At the time, abortion was illegal in Idaho, so my mother and her other sisters rallied to provide the emotional, financial and logistical support so the young woman could get a legal abortion in the state of Washington.

That was around 1971, when a case captioned Roe v. Wade was making its way through the courts. Two years later, on January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling that recognized a woman's right to make decisions about her own healthcare.

By the time I was born in 1988, Roe v. Wade was already a generation older than me, and with each passing year, the monumental case fell further into the past and settled as a part of history memorized for exams.

I feel lucky to have been raised with the rights that my mother's generation had to fight for. But there's a side effect that I doubt they had in mind when they broke through the glass ceiling and promised us a new future: our apathy. I cannot think of a time where my girlfriends and I have voluntarily discussed the need to protect our reproductive freedom. Our mothers heard the stories of women dying from illegal abortions or girls maiming themselves trying to end their pregnancies. My generation hasn't.

If we do not educate ourselves about the impact and significance of cases such as Roe v. Wade, or consider the real possibility that we could lose the rights we take for granted, we play a role in the demise of those rights. Most women my age don't realize that these fears aren't just hypothetical — they're playing out right now across America. In the last decade alone, state lawmakers have introduced more than 5,000 anti-choice measures.

This month, U.S. Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would deny any federal family planning funds to Planned Parenthood Federation of America or any other organization that provides abortion care. The measure is similar to one in New Jersey, where funding for family planning centers was annihilated, denying basic healthcare services to some of the neediest populations in the state.

Last month in Arizona, St. John's Hospital lost its affiliation with the Roman Catholic Diocese in Phoenix because the hospital performs abortions when it will save the mother's life. I asked a civic-minded friend if she had heard about this story, and she admitted she hadn't. Once I told her, she was stunned.

In November in Alaska, the ACLU joined Planned Parenthood to overturn a law requiring teenagers to obtain permission from a court or parent to have an abortion. The law places the personal beliefs of parents and the whims of a judge above the person whose life it will actually change. I can't imagine being a scared teenager in an enormous state like Alaska and navigating a complicated legal process all by myself.

These are a smattering of examples, but they're by no means the only ones.

I make a call to women of my generation: we must come to accept that we are the new protectors of our constitutional rights. The passivity of our generation may be the most important battle we have ahead of us yet.

Our mothers should also take note. They fought for those rights and it is up to them to remind us what life was like before Roe v. Wade. My mother only shared the story about her sorority sister recently, when I started to reflect upon the anniversary. I encourage other women of her generation to do the same.

If none of us stands up to fight it, we may wake up one morning to find our rights have vanished. Roe v. Wade can only protect the people if we protect it.

Jill Beckerman, 22, is an administrative assistant at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and a recent graduate of George Washington University.