It is well-known that Planned Parenthood often targets vulnerable populations such as poor Americans, placing clinics near impoverished and low-income neighborhoods. But a disturbing new trend is emerging, and the abortion giant is setting its sites on a new target demographic: college students.
At the North Carolina Family Policy Council website, Mary Summa lays out the developing business model: “Currently,” she writes, “an astounding 34 percent of abortions are procured by women between the ages of 20 and 24! (North Carolina statistics from 2014 reveal that 31.5 percent of all abortions occurred in this age range (6,665 of 21,129 abortions). In an attempt to capture this market nationwide, Planned Parenthood began placing clinics near college campuses.
“In 2012,” Summa notes, “Students for Life studied over 3000 zip codes where college campuses are located. Nearly 79 percent of Planned Parenthood clinics were within walking distance of at least one college campus.”
Summa notes that while not all of these clinics perform abortions, “all Planned Parenthood clinics that don’t perform abortions either refer to facilities that perform abortions, schedule abortions, or provide chemical abortion pills.”
Planned Parenthood has always worked to encourage pro-abortion student groups on college campuses, but recent signs point to an increasingly aggressive campaign to bring abortions to college campuses. In the past few years, at least one Planned Parenthood college organization has turned advocacy into action. In March 2016, the Student Senate at the University of California, Berkeley approved a bill to bring an abortion clinic to the school’s campus. Those abortions, according to the resolution, would be provided free of charge to the students because, as the sponsor is quoted, “Health is a right not a privilege. […] The university should be providing this right to all students.” That bill was authored by the two co-directors of “Students United for Reproductive Justice,” Berkeley’s Planned Parenthood Generation Action organization.
And the pressure continues to mount there. In March, the same month the Student Senate passed their resolution, Berkeley’s Graduate Assembly passed a similar opinion. In September of 2016, the City of Berkeley formally requested that the University provide an abortion clinic on campus. At the writing date of this article’s publication, the University has refused.
Summa notes that one way to turn back this troubling tide is to “support legislation that prohibits institutions of higher learning that accept government funding from facilitating or performing surgical abortions or administering chemical abortions in campus health centers.” Activists can also “work to promote a culture of life on college campuses though Students for LIfe groups and involvement by community-based pro-life organizations on campus.”
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