Students should get involved defending a woman's right to have an abortion, said Molly Yard, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), at a speech at Boston University last night. Yard said students should fight for individual rights on both the national and the state levels.

"The reason a woman gets an abortion is her decision, her business, and has nothing to do with the government," Yard said.

"[Abortion], is a question of individual rights and isn't that what this country was founded about," Yard told the audience of approximately 800 people.

NOW is organizing a national strategy which aims to defend women's abortion rights on the local, state and national level.

Yard said that NOW will sponsor a November 12 pro-choice rally in Washington in front of the Lincoln Memorial to emphasize that "the constitutional right to reproductive freedom must exist in every state, accessible to every woman and girl."

"We cannot exist 'half slave, half free' in women's rights," Yard said. "One hundred and thirty years ago we fought a civil war because this country could not exist 'half-slave half-free.' Once again, America is embattled."

Yard said the pro-choice movement had won a major victory this week with a House of Representatives vote to allow federally funded abortions in cases of rape, incest and possible harm to the woman.

"We already see a change starting in the House of Representatives," Yard said. "For the first time in 80 years there have been two pro-choice decisions in the House this fall," she added.

"If there's a constitutional right to abortion, it is meaningless without Medicaid funding," Yard said.

Yard said that one part of NOW's strategy was the use of "Freedom Caravans," already in use in New Jersey and Virginia, "to educate and recruit pro-choice voters." Yard said that the caravans were unifying the voters and creating awareness among politicians of the support behind abortion rights.

"In the '90s all of us are going to be single-issue voters, voting across the board, not Republican or Democrat, and the issue is going to be pro-choice," she said.