• The University of Notre Dame is holding a series of events in a “Reproductive Justice” series during the spring semester supporting abortion and transgender rights despite the school’s Catholic mission, according to the series event page. 
• Ash Williams, a biological woman who identifies as a transgender man, is an abortion doula and anti-cop activist who is speaking during the March event titled “Trans Care + Abortion Care: Intersections and Questions.”
• “Is it legitimate, is it right, to eliminate a human life to resolve a problem?” Pope Francis told Vatican News. 

The University of Notre Dame is hosting a “Reproductive Justice” series of speaker events this semester pushing pro-abortion and transgender ideology to its Catholic students, according to the event page.

The Catholic school’s series is comprised of three events titled “Reproductive Health Disparities and Injustice virtual panel,” “Trans Care + Abortion Care: Intersections and Questions” and “Laura Briggs Lecture: Taking Children: Why Brackeen v. Haaland? Why Now?” according to the school’s website. Notre Dame invited multiple speakers to the events, including a trans abortion doula, to discuss women, people of color and trans rights since the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in June 2022. (RELATED: Pope Francis Criticizes ‘Conservative’ And ‘Progressive’ Wings For Politicizing Church)

The virtual panel, held on Feb. 17, focused on disparities in the black and Latino communities when it came to reproductive health care featuring “local and national experts on Latinx/e and Black maternal health,” according to the event page. The remaining two events, to be held on March 20 and April 24, will discuss the “intersections between trans care and abortion care” and examine “the 400-year-old history of the United States’ use of taking children from marginalized communities.”

Ash Williams, a biological woman who identifies as a transgender man, is an abortion doula, a professional that provides non-medical support during an abortion, and an anti-cop activist who is speaking during the March event along with Jules Gill-Peterson, an associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, according to the event page. The event will also be held on Zoom and the audience will have an opportunity to ask questions after the speakers finish presenting.

Williams has been working for the last five years “to expand abortion access by funding abortions and training other people to become abortion doulas” and consults for Black Feminist Advisors, a reproductive justice consulting firm. Gill-Peterson is the author of “Histories of the Transgender Child,” a book that claims to “shatter the widespread myth that transgender children are a brand new generation in the 21st century” and also writes for The New York Times and CNN.

Notre Dame’s April event is hosting Laura Briggs, a professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an expert on child welfare policy and “transnational and transracial adoption,” according to her bio on the event page.

“Briggs’s most recent book, Taking Children: A History of American Terror (University of California Press), examines the 400-year-old history of the United States’ use of taking children from marginalized communities—from the taking of Black and Native children during America’s founding to the Donald Trump’s policy of family separation for Central American migrants and asylum seekers at the U.S./Mexico border—as a violent tool for political ends,” Briggs’ bio reads.

Briggs told the Daily Caller News Foundation that her talk would focus on the Haaland v. Brakeen adoption case that is pending before the Supreme Court. The case deals with the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act passed in 1978 regarding potential racial discrimination in the custody and handling of Native American children in foster care and adoption agencies.

Sponsoring the program is the Notre Dame Gender Studies Program and the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, with support from the Initiative on Race and Resilience; the Center for Social Concerns; the Institute for Latino Studies; the Notre Dame departments of American Studies; Anthropology; English; Film, Television & Theatre; History; Political Science; and Sociology, the St. Mary’s College Department of Gender and Women Studies; the Indiana University-South Bend Women’s and Gender Studies Program; and the South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center, according to the website. They did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Notre Dame’s website describes the private university as a “place born of vision and defined by its Catholic character” and claims to remain “faithful to both its religious and intellectual traditions.”

“Our departments of theology and philosophy are regarded as among the finest in the world while faculty in all departments participate in our mission to ensure that Notre Dame’s Catholic character informs all of our endeavors,” the Catholic school’s website says. “From legal scholars who study civil rights and religious liberty, to scientists and engineers who investigate environmental protection, to sociologists who examine religious and ethical practices, Notre Dame continues to be a place where the Church does its thinking.”

The Catholic church has been outspoken about its position on abortion on several occasions, according to Vatican News. Pope Francis said in 2018 that “abortion is murder” and in 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade he declined to comment on the ruling from a legal point of view, but noted that unique DNA can be found within 30 days of pregnancy.

“Science today and any book on embryology, the one our medical students study, tells you that 30 days after conception there is DNA and the laying out already of all the organs,” he said. “Is it legitimate, is it right, to eliminate a human life to resolve a problem? It’s a human life – that’s science.”

The church has been less firm on LGBTQ and transgender issues as the pope has given conflicting statements on his position, saying in 2013 about a gay priest “Who am I to judge?” according to ABC News, while later stating that gender theory was “intrinsically disordered” and finally in January confirmed that homosexuality was a sin in an interview with the Associated Press.

Notre Dame, BFA, Gill-Peterson did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment. Williams could not be directly reached for comment.

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