Mt. Lebanon High School senior Janet Montgomery said she will continue her education at St. John’s College in Maryland mostly because of what the picturesque liberal arts school has to offer academically.

But what some states aren’t offering — or soon might not be offering — in terms of reproductive rights also factored into her college choice.

Montgomery, 17, visited Oberlin College and several other campuses in Ohio over the summer, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. A state ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy briefly went into effect following the Supreme Court decision before being put on hold because of a legal challenge.

Montgomery said the uncertainty made her feel “less safe” about going to college in Ohio. The aspiring writer shifted her search elsewhere. Other states that enacted abortion bans, or seemed likely to do so, also dropped off her list.

She said her family is grateful that she found a college with small classes and a welcoming community in a state where abortion rights are protected — though they lament how the Supreme Court’s decision and shifting laws narrowed her search.

“My mother said that it makes her feel really sad,” said Montgomery, who was accepted early decision to St. John’s. “She was like, ‘I’d love for you to … go and see states like Texas or Alabama or Florida or Oklahoma just to see what the state is like because different places are cool.”

About a dozen states have moved to place greater restrictions on abortion rights since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

With college application season well underway, many are watching where students considering out-of-state campuses land and whether the changed legal landscape has an impact on college choices and what are already complex decisions.

A survey by Best Colleges released in August showed that 39% of those planning to enroll as undergraduates in the next 12 months said the high court’s decision to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision would impact the state in which they enroll.

The survey of 1,000 prospective and current students also found 57% preferred to attend schools in states that legally protect abortion rights. It also found that a majority of students said they’d rather live (62%) and work (64%) in states where abortion is legal.

Cara Burns, a University of Iowa sophomore from Highland Park, said she has no plan to transfer. She has a rowing scholarship and has warmed to the Big Ten campus in Iowa City.

Just the same, Burns, 20, said she likely would not have enrolled there had she known that the Supreme Court would remove a buffer between abortion rights and a state where the governor is seeking to lift an injunction on a ban on abortions after six weeks.

Burns said she does not expect to ever need an abortion, but she chafed at the potential loss of that right just the same.

“It’s a little degrading, I guess, to know that I go to school in a state that doesn’t support women’s rights to make their own choices about their bodies,” said Burns, who is studying sports management.

Others see the issue differently.

Emily Saidi, 38, a West Virginia University graduate student, has a pro-life viewpoint that she said is often drowned out on college campuses.

“It would disturb me greatly if someone picked a college based on whether or not the state allowed an abortion. That, to me, just sounds ludicrous,” said Saidi, who has nine children ages 4 to 22, eight of whom are adopted. “I don’t think it should even rank.”

Saidi, who lives in Nitro, W.Va., and takes social work courses remotely, said there are “so many pregnancy resource centers around that are just itching to help, and there’s so many parents that are wanting to adopt.”

Kristen Willmott, a counselor with Top Tier Admissions in Massachusetts, noticed during the summer that some students pondering where to lock in their early decision choices were taking prominent schools in parts of the South off their list.

“I started to have students who said, ‘You know, what? We have been talking about Vanderbilt, we have been talking about Texas schools, we have been talking about Florida schools. And I’m not doing that anymore,’” Willmott said. “That was kind of interesting because it’s pretty unprecedented for me to have students … be headed on the path and then wipe states off the list because of the (court) decision that had come down.”

Diane Vater, founder of the Pittsburgh-based Vater College Advising, said none of her current students has voiced a specific concern to her about reproductive rights related to their college decision. For them, she said, “The impact of the overturning of Roe v. Wade is more nuanced.”

“If they are pro-choice, it is likely part of their emphasis on personal rights in general, which does drive their college search and final decision,” Vater said.

Each year, most applications are submitted between November and February, though it’s far from the end of the process. Many sought-after students will have multiple acceptances in hand, some from states where abortion is protected and others where legal access to abortion is murky or banned.

In states with bans or ones being challenged in court, schools find themselves in the delicate spot of declaring support for students who expect access to reproductive care, even as the schools’ legal right to offer that care shifts.

Their audience includes those who fear state and federal loss of abortion rights could foreshadow other moves against same-sex marriage and the LGBTQ community.

In Ohio, where a ban after six weeks of pregnancy has been blocked, Oberlin College leaders moved to reassure students after backlash in August over prospects that new management of the campus health services might mean loss of services, including birth control.

“Oberlin is committed to the health and total well-being of our students,” President Carmen Twillie Ambar wrote as the fall semester began. “This commitment requires that we provide a high level of care across a wide scope of services, including reproductive health care and gender-affirming care.”

In September, Clay Marsh, chancellor and executive dean of WVU health sciences, acknowledged, “We don’t know what the next steps are,” adding that the university’s “commitment remains unchanged to make sure that the best care and resources are available for our patients and our campus community.”

The state’s near-total abortion ban had then just been signed into law by the governor after passing the legislature.

“We will continue to support and advocate for the provision of safe care for all pregnant patients in accordance with all applicable laws,” Marsh said in a message to students and employees.

Although Morgantown is near the border of Pennsylvania, where abortion is still legal, Jenna Sergent, a 22-year-old senior at WVU, said not everyone lives next door to a state providing access to the procedure or has the resources to travel from a campus to get such services.

Sergent, who is active in WVU’s Students for Reproductive Justice, said she is on the fence about whether she will leave the state after graduation — even though she said she has no plans to have children. She wondered what impact West Virginia’s near-total abortion ban would have on other juniors and seniors she knows who are deciding where best to build careers and families.

“They’re kind of in this dilemma, where they either want to stay and use their degrees here in West Virginia or they want to leave,” said Sergent, of Hurricane, W.Va., near the state capital of Charleston. “This law has kind of brought that debate and dilemma to a forefront.”

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