I would more say the standard is girls on the pill or some variation and the use of condoms. It doesn't prevent pregnancy but it certainly lowers the rate of it by a ton. Really if you're stressed about it just don't have sex unless you're with a person that you know feels the same way you do.

lol, you probably don't need to worry about this.

but yeah, most girls have at least 1 or 2 abortions during their college lives.

@Lando: "but yeah, most girls have at least 1 or 2 abortions during their college lives"
I sincerely hope you are kidding. I'm assuming you are, since there are obviously still some girls in college who are pro-life, and likely some who are pro-choice and would themselves choose to not get one.

I'd say most having multiple is rather uncommon, but I'd bet there's a sizable number that do, and yeah, abortions aren't that uncommon in general. I mean, realistically, the possible age range for potentially being a mother is 13-55; and most people by 30 aren't having enough sex to hit those marginal odds that protection fails. So of the at least 1M abortions in the US annually, the vast majority should fall into the 13-30 range, with peak times coinciding with peak years of sexual activity... college years.

(A Google search backs this; 52% of abortions are for women under 25, with 32% being 20-24 (http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html).)

See I dont know anyone who had an abortion in college. I guess times are changing though.

Every girl who is sexually active in college is on the pill. It's too easy to get to no do. Guys where condoms primarily to keep from catching anything.

@invictus: How effective is the pill?

@celtic: How long ago were you in college?

Also there's less sex in college than you think. More than real life, of course, but it isn't four years of bacchanalia.

Realistically though this is largely irrelevant discussion. Firstly, you have marginal odds of being in this situation; logical analysis would conclude that you shouldn't make this your wedge issue on whether or not to be sexually active in college. (That wedge issue is going to be economic. Even the most efficient people still end up spending what would, for a jobless student like you say you are/will be, qualify as a lot of money going out enough to be active, never mind the time involved.)

But more importantly... you're not ever going to find out, are you? Granted, I've never been here myself (and would welcome the input of those who have), but I would imagine most college women who find out that they're pregnant and abort the pregnancy do so on their own, without seeking the input of the prospective father. (After all, frankly, you don't get any.) That would be exacerbated if you're pro-life and openly so. Realistically I doubt you'll ever find out even if it happens.

If you beat the pill, Conservative Man, you're a god and should brag about it for life. It basically can't happen. Is sex ed that bad at your school? They told us how effective the pll was in Catholic school, for goodness sakes.

@Invictus: yeah, the sex ed was bad. It was abstinence only, and they just mentioned condoms in passing. To be fair, pretty much everyone at my school already knew what a condom was, but still. That school day consisted of half the school making fun of sex ed.

On another note, how do girls ever get pregnant in college? Forgetting to take the pill?

@Consertative Long enough that it's been awhile. Thus the times are changing. But, really I work with some college kids I can ask them and see if they've ever heard of it.

How do girls get pregnant? Is that a serious question?

@Invictus: I don't literally mean the actual mechanism of how it works lol. I know that. But you said that the pill is virtually 100% effective. And that all sexually active girls in college are on the pill. If both those are true, then I don't see how girls in college could ever get pregnant. In fact, that would be a logical impossibility. So I'm assuming you must have exaggerated on one of those two points.

Well, when a boy likes a girl . . .

Because "virtually" and "literally" are not the same word. C'mon, man.

Okay, so if it isn't literally 100% effective, how effective is it? 99%? 99.9%? 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999%?

Hopeless.

Whats hopeless? The chances of getting pregnant while on the pill? Because college girls do seem to do it occasionally...

Wikipedia says the failure rate is ~.3%. So 3 in 1000 attempts. Mean time to happen is 230 attempts. Let's take my campus, LSU; population approximately 30,000. For sake of assumption assume 3/4 of the students are capable of reproducing with another student whom they could at least theoretically find sexually attractive. About 23,000, or 11,500 pairs.

If a mere .02% of those pairs have sex on a given night, then it is more likely that there will be a failure than for the contraception to be perfect. .02% is probably high given that such pairing has to happen within the actual set of students within those 23,000 that actually do choose to go out and hook up that night... but again, that's a single night. .02% in a month, or two months? Incredibly likely.

So contraception failure, although incredibly rare for a given individual, is indeed quite a reality on a big college campus. If you go to a smaller campus (which is quite likely, as LSU is on the larger end population-wise) then obviously your odds are better, but the point is, it's not 100% safety. Nothing involving actually having sex is.

That said, stop making potential pregnancy the wedge issue. It's not gonna happen and if it does you won't know that an abortion occurs in most cases.

You have a far more practical concern. You said "getting a job" would be a consequence of a possible pregnancy that "would suck." I assume you won't have a job during undergrad. You're gonna have to find a way to pay for going out enough to get sexually active in the first place. Start worrying about that and not about the odds here; they're in your favor.

"You're gonna have to find a way to pay for going out enough to get sexually active in the first place."
I'm pretty sure walking around campus or town, or going to the beach or something like that, and trying to talk to girls, doesn't cost any money.

CM you aren't gonna get any if you're pro-life. College women are liberated and they don't want you trying to control their bodies.

@yj: Yeah, because I'm sure absolutely 100% of college women are liberal and pro-abortion, and that is not at all a sweeping generalization. /sarcasm

rue but I'm guessing a lot of the conservative and pro-life women are more likely to be waiting for marriage then the liberal, pro-choice ones.

Kid, I was just in college, knew plenty of slutty girls, and no one I knew had an abortion. Almost every girl is on the pill, since college is typically filled with people who have basic level education and know how easy it is to prevent pregnancy.
Also, it's not like everyone is fucking left and right in college. Christ, this is what happens with abstinence only education, people grow up with tv/movies as their only real source of knowledge of what sex is like/how the real world treats sex. There are a couple of slutty people who will give it away for free, but it's rare. Most people date a little bit and have sex a reasonable amount. So some sex advice, cause it sounds like you need it:
1) You will get an opportunity to have sex within the first week. Reading your writings, it sounds like a punk/emo/goth/insert-high-school-"rebellious"-lifestyle-here girl will think your naivete is charming and will want to be your first so she can keep your virginity as a trophy for all time. Other girls to look after are the geeky girl who wants to watch a movie with you all night, and especially the super prudish and religious girl who loudly declares to all she meets on the first day that she's saying herself for marriage. The latter will be having sex on the 3rd day. It's like goddamn clockwork. DO NOT HAVE SEX WITH ANY OF THESE WOMEN. They're in a vulnerable place, you're in a vulnerable place, fuck, all of the freshman class is in a vulnerable emotional place for the first year, but ESPECIALLY in that first month. You will be emotionally scarred by this. Thank god I was a nervous little bitch and walked out on that skanky geeky girl on the second night, 'cause I know it would have been rough and losing it with my first college girlfriend two months later was much more rewarding. Wait for a relationship
2.) Sex isn't the holy grail tv/movies make it out to be. It's just really really good to great, not mindbogglingly epic. So don't worry if you're not having it right away.
3.) Definitely don't walk around telling people you plan on having sex or anything that would betray your lack of knowledge on the subject. You will never find anyone sane who isn't immediately turned off by that. And for good measure, don't go declaring that you're pro-life from the rooftops. There will be plenty of chances to speak your mind in the appropriate classes, or late night deep discussions with someone you trust. It's not that you should hide who you are. It's that being an adult means learning that you can make a lot more friends if you don't greet people by telling them all the reasons you think they're wrong (a lesson I learned by the end of freshman year).

I'm sure I just wasted my time since these are the kind of life lessons you need to learn for yourself because your teenage brain automatically ignores advice from adults, but hopefully some of that stuck.

Yeah, it's the liberal girls who are sluts.

@celtic: True, but only about 5% of people actually wait for marriage. A lot more than 5% of women are pro-life.