The College Fix

President says she requested ‘major provider of abortions’ be removed from website

Pro-life activists scored a win at Edgewood College last month when the Catholic institution removed Planned Parenthood from its list of wellness resources, following a massive petition demanding the abortion provider be stripped from the school’s website.

The petition was started by TFP Student Action, an organization that seeks to “proudly affirm the positive values of tradition, family and private property.” It was addressed to Mary Ellen Gevelinger, the interim president of the Madison, Wisconsin college.

“Planned Parenthood is the antithesis of wellness. Not only does the mega abortion provider rob the innocent lives of countless preborn babies, but it also unleashes the spiritual death of those involved with each procured abortion, which is a grave sin against God, the Creator of life,” the petition declared.

The response to the appeal was significant. The petition currently holds 15,470 signatures, over 5,000 more than its original goal.

On Nov. 19, TFP Student Action announced that the school had removed the Planned Parenthood links from its page. TFP Student Action Director John Ritchie praised the development on the group’s website.

“As a Catholic institution, Edgewood College should have never included Planned Parenthood as a ‘wellness’ option for students in the first place, because the abortion provider is directly responsible for shedding innocent blood, which offends God so much,” he said.

“When we band together and defend the right to life and fight for the future of the family, we can make a big difference. So let’s continue fighting the good fight with more enthusiasm and more devotion!” he added.

Abortion provider was ‘buried deep in the website’

Though the Planned Parenthood listing was stripped from the college’s website following the major public petition effort, interim president Mary Ellen Gevelinger seemed to suggest in an email interview that the decision to remove the provider was largely an internal one.

“As I understand the decision to put Planned Parenthood on the website, it was because the College had reduced the number of on-campus health services in recent years, and was pointing students to other areas for service, such as health care for women and men, and testing for certain diseases,” she told The College Fix.

“Since Planned Parenthood is a major provider of abortions, I asked that it be removed from the College website. This has been done without any public notice, and there has been no public response. The PP info was buried deep in the website,” she said.

A screenshot of the school’s website prior to the change show that the school directed students to two locations near the Catholic institution. One of those clinics did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Fix about the removal.

On its website, the school touts itself as “a Catholic college in the Dominican tradition.”

“[W]e are committed above all to the lifelong search for truth. All of us — students, faculty and staff of all nationalities and backgrounds, regardless of our personal spiritual beliefs — are partners in the pursuit of a just and compassionate world,” the website states.

This is not the only Catholic school under fire in recent months for promoting an abortion provider on its website. Seattle University pulled a Planned Parenthood resource link from its site in October after pro-life activists criticized its presence there. Faculty at the university later criticized the president of the school for that decision.

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