complicated political and ethical issues were laid out like plump , warm biscuits and rich gravy , an all-you-can-eat buffet of confidence and clarity , and I was starved for both .
Yet by the time I returned from Rome , and Gore and Bush were debating the death penalty , things had changed . I learned that a close friend of mine had had an abortion and had been supported through the process by her boyfriend . I loved and respected this woman , and given the story in her own words , her decision indeed seemed like the best choice . Suddenly , the fervor that surrounded Bush ’ s candidacy felt uncomfortable . My friend ’ s decision had me questioning the certainty that edged all conversations concerning abortion and the so-called sanctity of life .
Additionally , the fact that the sanctity of life argument encompassed contraception , a medication that I used , pulled the argument out of the abstract and into reality . A friend confided in me that she stored her birth control pills in a Tylenol bottle so her roommate would not know that she was using a contraceptive . I could not decide what stunned me more : the fact that she had to lie to her roommate about the nature of her relationship or that she had absolutely no idea how these pills worked , and if she continued to administer them to herself from a Tylenol bottle , she would most certainly become pregnant . She did not understand that the active hormonal pills came first to suppress ovulation and that the last row was actually a placebo to allow the body to menstruate without losing the habit of taking a daily pill . And she wasn ’ t the only one .
As it became clearer that my female classmates possessed very little knowledge about the fundamentals of the body and how it works sexually , one question continually gnawed at me : how did these well-read , well-educated people not know this shit ? In high school health class , amongst poorly scripted videos depicting , say , a handsome teen with a scholarship to Stanford reduced to working in an ice cream shop to support his illegitimately-conceived child , I had learned the basic mechanism that allowed the pill to work . Until coming to Bushgoverned Texas , the state with the 4 th highest rate of teen pregnancy in the country , I thought every 18-year-old had at least slipped a condom onto a banana .
No one seemed to want to talk about these issues in an open and investigatory manner , and I found no answers in my Sunday visits to the chapel . I couldn ’ t talk about my friend or her experience without serious opposition , nor discuss my own advancing relationship with my boyfriend without facing bias and judgment . I respected that it was a seriously Catholic university , but what
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