Mincing words, not actions.

A DOZEN OR SO YEARS AGO, I WAS ASKED by a high school student "can one be prolife and be a feminist?" "Absolutely not," I responded, unwavering. Insecure in my role as a feminist spokesperson, I deferred to what I perceived to be the feminist sound bite: abortion on demand without apology, keep your laws off my body, no more coat hangers. Being a feminist meant upholding these prochoice stances and in no way conceding to pro-lifers, those malicious hypocrites who bombed abortion clinics and murdered doctors.

Today, I look back on this exchange with embarrassment and guilt. What that girl and the hundreds of fathers who continually pose this question to me--mostly college-aged women of all races and from varying socio-economic backgrounds--are really asking is: can I be an individual who considers myself a feminist and be conflicted about this issue? Do I have to make abortion rights my priority issue? If an unplanned pregnancy happens, do I have to choose to have an abortion?

Regardless of how these perceptions came to be--Is the radical right to blame? Is it the fault of feminist academics and theorists who insist that being prochoice means being pro-abortion?--younger women are challenging what it means to be prochoice and what such a movement requires of them. The problem isn't that Gen X, Y and the to-be-christened Z aren't "prochoice," in the sense that they want women to have access to information to make a full-range of informed choices. But they are antsy to move beyond rhetoric.

For anyone born after 1970ish, abortion on demand was a birthright. You can't make young women fight for rights by scaring them with the inconceivable to many, but nonetheless potential, threat of overturning Roe v. Wade. You can motivate them by focusing on reality: for whom is abortion legal today? Rural women, poor women, women of color and young women of all races are penalized today through restrictions and other limitations that make it increasingly harder to access abortion rights. Young women are taking note of this and though they might not answer "yes," when polled in a generic way about being prochoice, their activism and the choices they are making are a more profound and necessary contribution.

The activism among younger women is a more honest measure of how reproductive freedom is a part of their core values and motivation. For instance, the prochoice and pro-life student groups at Ohio Wesleyan jointly host an annual "condom drop" on Valentines Day. At Carleton College, in Northfield, Minnesota, students organized a fund for women to choose abortion or pregnancy--the latter is a new addition to the fund. There are dozens of other funds that are part of the National Network of Abortion Funds--many started by younger women in the past few years. And in New York City and Cleveland, hosting services for women traveling long distances have been started by young women recognizing this void. I'm never left wanting that younger women aren't prochoice, though they might challenge the language, their commitment is unwavering.

AMY RICHARDS is a writer and activist, a contributing editor to Ms. magazine, and co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation, the first and only national organization working with young women between the ages of 15 and 30. www.ThirdWaveFoundation.org