Colleges navigate confusing legal landscapes as new abortion laws take effect

If a University of Michigan student walks into the school's Ann Arbor health center and learns they're pregnant, the health worker's response is never exactly the same.

"It's easy to list: 'Well, you can continue a pregnancy, or you can consider a medication abortion or ... a surgical procedure,'" says Dr. Susan Dwyer Ernst, chief of gynecology at the University Health Service. "But we take those conversations in the context of the human being who's sitting in front of us."

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, Ernst has been thinking a lot about how those conversations with students will change. Michigan is one of several states with long-standing abortion laws that weren't enforced while Roe guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion. Now, as abortion-banning state laws take effect, university health centers across the U.S. are trying to figure out their rights and responsibilities when counseling students.