In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, student activists at Georgetown University are threatening to withhold donations if the school doesn’t change its policies regarding “reproductive and family freedom.”
According to The Hoya, the law student chapter of the “reproductive justice-focused group” If/When/How and H*yas for Choice began a “No Donation Pledge” which requests that students and others “withhold donations towards the university endowment and unrestricted items” until certain “action items” are addressed.
“In short,” the pledge reads, “no choice at Georgetown – no donations for Georgetown.”
It concludes: “Choice is fundamental to personal liberty and academic equity. Our students deserve to learn and grow in a community that supports their family and bodily autonomy. Georgetown has cowered on this principle for far too long, and the time to demand long-lasting change is now.”
The groups, with support from organizations such as the Black Law Students Association, Georgetown University College Democrats and Georgetown Law Socialist Student Union, “request” that the university health center begin providing contraceptives, that Georgetown “allocate equal funding to pro-choice groups and endeavors” and end its “inordinate” support for the “anti-choice” Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life.
“From being forced to provide an underlying medical condition in order to be prescribed birth control at the health center to being told that absences related to childcare and/or new parenthood are excused at the sole discretion of their professors, students are suffering because Georgetown isn’t doing enough to protect their fundamental freedoms,” [If/When/How President Madeleine] Lippey wrote to The Hoya. …
“We really believe that when donors refuse to donate in unrestricted gifts and to the university endowment, then the university can’t use that money to fund anti-choice groups and speakers,” [H*yas for Choice Vice President Lauryn] Ping told The Hoya. “It also sends a message to the university that we’re not just going to sit by as they do all these anti-choice things, there’s going to be consequences for their actions.” …
“We really want the university to show us a timeline of when they’re going to do all these things, in addition to saying yes to our demands, and then if, after a month, they don’t respond at all, we will escalate,” Ping said. “We do have plans on how we can put additional pressure on the university in order to get these demands met.”
Although university officials refused comment, a Georgetown spokesman told The Hoya in January that the school remains “firmly committed to the Catholic Church’s teachings and values, including those about the sanctity and dignity of life.”
Back in 2018, H*yas for Choice began offering the so-called “morning-after pill” to any student who wanted it. Since the group is not an officially recognized student organization, Georgetown did not react saying “Individual students are permitted to express their opinions and ideas freely.”
MORE: Georgetown students target a deceased bishop and an abortion survivor for cancellation
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