FEATURED
Pro-life leader says students who want to help struggling moms ‘could be volunteering at a pregnancy resource center, holding diaper drives’ instead
Student fees at Purchase College, an institution of the State University of New York system, are funding a garden that grows abortifacient plants, according to documents obtained by The College Fix through a public records request.
The student-run Collective Organizing for Pleasure and Equity (COPE) Club began the “Reproductive Justice Garden” project in 2019 and still runs it today, according to the club’s Instagram account.
The club’s mission, according to the charter on its website, is to “empower individuals through self-care practices that prioritize both mental and physical well-being by promoting pleasure and advocating for reproductive rights and to oversee the Reproductive Garden.”
The Purchase Student Government budgeted about $1,200 for the COPE Club during the last academic year, according to purchase request and transaction documents between the club and student government from October 2025 and March 2026. The funding comes from required student activity fees at the taxpayer-funded public university.
The documents shows the club spent about $300 in funds last fall and in the spring on supplies for upkeep of the garden, including weeding materials, sunscreen, garden shears, and a watering can, as well as bluetooth speakers and bug spray.
The club appears to promote self-induced abortions, even though abortions are legal and widely accessible at clinics throughout New York state. The garden’s Instagram page contains posts with instructions for harvesting from the garden as well as a September 2024 post advertising the peacock flower as an abortifacient, The Fix previously reported.
An outline of the garden from an October 2024 Instagram post labels a large section for “abortifacient” plants. Other sections of the garden are labeled as areas for plants that help with “pregnancy/gestation,” “mental health,” and “menstruation.”
The College Fix contacted the COPE Club, Purchase Student Government, and the college’s media relations office to ask about concerns about students potentially using the plants to self-induce an abortion as well as student fees being used to fund the garden. No one responded to two emailed requests over the last two weeks.
However, pro-life advocates recently protested the garden and called for its removal, expressing concerns about students attempting to use the plants to abort their unborn babies.
“We are horrified by the fact that a college campus allows an abortifacient garden,” Katie Xavios, national director of American Life League, told The Fix via email last week. The national pro-life organization advocates for the “protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to death.”
Xavios said the on-campus garden is not a solution for pregnant women who are struggling. “Women who find themselves facing a surprise pregnancy need compassionate care that affirms both her life and the life of her child,” Xavios said.
“Students who want to help could be volunteering at a pregnancy resource center, holding diaper drives on campus, and offering real solutions,” she told The Fix.
Instead, she said Purchase College students are supporting “an evil garden of death that not only kills children but that could potentially harm their mothers as well.”
Xavios told The Fix, “This is neither love for the mom, nor is it proper healthcare.”
Recently, representatives from Students for Life of America also visited the campus to protest the garden.
The group carried signs that called for a “safe and clean campus environment,” according to the group’s Instagram post.
The student pro-life organization also set up a “Cemetery of the Innocents” display at the college “to make the reality of abortion impossible to ignore — and to welcome conversation with students,” according to the post. The display used 1,190 markers as a reminder of the number of daily abortions done by Planned Parenthood.
Students for Life objected to the garden, describing it as “an installation featuring plants that induce the death of a pre-born baby” and calling for the removal of the “poisonous plants.”
The organization’s media relations office did not respond to The Fix’s request for comment about the student activity fees being used for the garden.
MORE: New York college ‘reproductive justice garden’ features plants promoted as ‘abortifacients’
MORE: Barnard library supports abortifacient ‘garden’ and ‘self-managed abortion’ event
