Women at St. Joseph’s University wrestle with Roe news

Growing up Catholic in South Jersey, Lesley Reyes found it difficult to talk about abortion with her family and high school teachers.

It was only at college that the 22-year-old St. Joseph’s University criminal justice major said she found a community of young people who shared her religion — and her belief in a person’s right to choose.

“It’s still very difficult to voice that opinion in my household,” said Reyes , during a lunchtime study break Tuesday at the college’s campus ministry center. “But I found my space here — I found like-minded people — and that’s how I see my opinion now. I’m putting the person first rather than what they’re teaching through Catholic doctrine.”

So when she first read on Instagram on Tuesday morning of a leaked Supreme Court draft that would overturn Roe v. Wade, Reyes, who is set to start work at a law firm after graduation later this month, said her first reaction was anger and sadness.

“Because as a country, we’re regressing,” she said.

Shishira Philip, a 21-year-old biology major who staffed the campus ministry desk, agreed.

“I am an Orthodox Christian,” she said. “But that doesn’t conflict with anything I believe about it. In fact, I think it doesn’t matter in my head. It doesn’t matter if I believe abortion is right or not. It’s not up to me to take the choice away from all these women across the nation.”

Amid morning classes and looming finals, women at the private Jesuit university in Philadelphia and Lower Merion reacted to the news Tuesday that the Supreme Court could soon return America to a place it was three decades before many of them were born: A country where millions will be denied safe access to an abortion.

“When I first heard about it, ‘I was like, ‘Is this The Handmaid’s Tale?” said Ellie Cleveland, 20, an interdisciplinary health studies major from South Jersey, studying at a table outside the student academic center. “If it were men’s bodies, it would not even be a question. It would be, ‘How dare you put barriers on what men could do with their bodies.’”

Her tablemate, Samantha Proske, 23, nodded her agreement.

“They have never been pregnant, they can never be pregnant, and they don’t know what any of it’s like emotionally, physically, or spiritually.”

But some women at the historic Catholic college said their faith had left them more conflicted.

Alessia Martire, a 21-year-old marketing major, who grew up in a devoutly Catholic family in North Jersey, said she struggles with the issue of abortion — of when exactly life starts and up to what point in a pregnancy an abortion should be allowed. But she believes individuals should have the choice.

“Even if I wouldn’t do it, I can’t imagine feeling like I was trapped into that choice,” she said. “Like it wasn’t even there for me anymore.”

Still other students celebrated.

Annie Mathew, 21, a biology major from Havertown, found about the court’s draft to overturn Roe v. Wade only after leaving noon Mass at the campus chapel Tuesday.

“Thank God,” she said. “I believe that God has created all human life and everybody should have the right to life, and I think as a Catholic college a lot of us would have that upbringing.”