Education

Abortion Is Infiltrating College Campuses — With The Help Of Democratic Lawmakers

(Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Alexa Schwerha Contributor
Font Size:
  • A 2019 California bill went into effect on Jan. 1 to require public colleges and universities to stock abortion pills on campus, which was replicated by Massachusetts and is currently being considered by lawmakers in New York.
  • Pro-life organizations told the Daily Caller News Foundation that these laws are dangerous for female students and that they are continuing to fight for life on college campuses.
  • “California has 150 abortion clinics, taxpayer-funded abortion, and no shortage of abortion access. Mandating that state universities dispense abortion drugs is nothing more than lethal virtue-signaling by California politicians who prioritize delivering a dead baby over a live one,” Mary Rose Short, California Right to Life director, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Lawmakers in blue states across the country are passing laws to require public universities to provide chemical abortions on campus.

A new California law took effect on Jan. 1 requiring all public university health systems in the University of California and California State University systems to stock abortion pills. Massachusetts passed a similar law to ensure students have immediate access to abortion while New York is considering similar measures. (RELATED: ‘Guarding Young College Women’: Republican Bill Would Defund Universities That Offer Chemical Abortions)

The California law, signed by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, has been used as a blueprint for other states to safeguard on-campus abortion access in wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The law requires all 33 schools in the UC and CSU system to stock “abortion by medication techniques at on-campus student health centers.”

“California has 150 abortion clinics, taxpayer-funded abortion, and no shortage of abortion access. Mandating that state universities dispense abortion drugs is nothing more than lethal virtue-signaling by California politicians who prioritize delivering a dead baby over a live one,” Mary Rose Short, California Right to Life director, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

UC Santa Barbara has written 50 prescriptions for students to receive abortion pills since they were stocked on campus in April 2022, Politico reported.

“I believe abortion is health care, and it’s important to show students that it’s normal and something they should expect and demand,” Kellie DeLozier, an OBGYN at the UCSB health center, told Politico.

Angie Magaña, a nurse practitioner at UCSB, told Politico that no one refused to prescribe the pill after staff participated in a workshop to address any concerns.

“We told them: This is just part of the range of services that we provide now and you can leave your personal beliefs at home,” she said. “We said: Really what you’re doing is giving students the safer option. And when we talk about it like that, most people say okay.”

Students for Life of America (SLFA), a national organization dedicated to banning abortion, made educating students about the abortion pill one of its top priorities, Dana Stancavage, SFLA press strategist, told the DCNF. She praised Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas for introducing a bill to defund universities which promote abortion in “SFLAction-inspired legislation called the Protecting Life on College Campus Act.”

“We’re closely monitoring news out of California as we want to see life protected in law and women provided with the full facts of Chemical Abortion which is four times more dangerous than surgical abortion and can lead to injury, infertility, death, and misuse from sexual abusers,” she said.

In Massachusetts, the abortion pill became a required medication available at student health centers after House Bill 5090 was signed into law by former Republican Gov. Charlie Baker in July 2022. The bill requires colleges and universities to adopt a “medication abortion readiness plan” which details how an institution will “provide medication abortions to students or assist students in obtaining medication abortions,” according to its text.

“Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs last summer, lawmakers here passed a bill they claimed would expand access to ‘care’ young women need. So while women under 21 cannot legally purchase alcohol, they can ingest pills, given to them by medical professionals, in their dorm rooms, only to deliver their deceased children into dorm toilets hours later,” Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL), told the DCNF.

In response, MCFL installed two billboards along a high-traffic route towards University of Massachusetts (UMass) Medical School and Worcester State University promoting pro-life ideas.

A photo of a billboard installed by Massachusetts Citizens for Life along I-290.

A photo of a billboard installed by Massachusetts Citizens for Life along I-290 / provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

MCFL also advocated for bill being considered in the legislature that, if passed, would require abortion pill providers to also inform women about the Abortion Pill Reversal (APR).

While not yet law in New York, legislators are looking to make the blue state, already a known abortion sanctuary, the next to require public campuses to provide medication abortion. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said in early January she intends to ensure that all State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY) institutions offer abortion pills on campus or establish a relationship with a local clinic to refer students for abortion services.

“SUNY campuses offer a wide array of medical services for the hundreds of thousands of students in need of medical attention,” Holly Liapis, assistant vice chancellor of communications & press secretary for SUNY, previously told the DCNF. “For students seeking reproductive health care, our campus medical staff offer easy access to services that may include abortion medication, along with referring students to nearby reproductive health providers to provide a full spectrum of services.”

Barnard College, located in New York, announced in October it would stock abortion pills on campus by the fall 2023 semester.

“Barnard applies a reproductive justice and gender-affirming framework to all of its student health and well-being services, and particularly to reproductive healthcare,” Barnard said in a statement provided to the DCNF. “In the post-Roe context, we are bolstering these services.”

Other institutions, including most recently George Washington University, install vending machines where students can quickly access Plan B.

Ohio State University Undergraduate Student Government handed out free Plan B to students on Jan. 25, according to an Instagram post. Pro-life students reportedly protested the event and held signs warning attendees that Plan B “can end a human life” and advertising pro-life resources.

UCSB, Barnard College, Hochul, GWU, OSU and OSU USG did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment. DeLozier and Magaña could not be contacted for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel