Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on March 3 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission.
About one in nine Christian colleges have some form of connection with Planned Parenthood, a recent investigation by the Pro-Life Generation’s Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement found.
The institute, an initiative of Students for Life of America, “investigated 732 colleges and universities affiliated with Christian churches in the United States for the fourth year in a row, finding that 83 … maintain some type of relationship with Planned Parenthood,” according to the report.
Michelle Venditto, director of strategic initiatives at Students for Life, told the College Fix that researchers assessed a college’s “connection to Planned Parenthood or the abortion industry in general” through an “analysis of the school’s website.”
For example, “Wesleyan College, a Methodist school in Georgia, not only refers directly for abortion on its website, but goes so far as to label it ‘abortion care’ and urges students to seek abortion quickly before state protections for preborn babies begin,” the report states.
Wesleyan College did not respond to requests for comment from the College Fix this week.
[RELATED: ‘A Slave to DEI’—Baylor Twists Scripture to Justify Slavery Memorial]
The most common connection was a link or referral to Planned Parenthood on the “Campus Help Center” landing page, Venditto said.
“Respective school administrations or related academic departments were contacted via phone and email. Our team informed them of the identified infractions for verification and to request the removal of the offending content,” she said.
“Because these Christian institutions are affiliated with a Christ-centered denomination and historical Christian faith, they should adhere to historical Biblical teachings,” Venditto told the Fix.
She also said Catholic institutions should follow church teaching, which has explicitly and consistently condemned abortion since the first century.
“The Catechism emphasizes that abortion, whether intended as an end or a means, directly violates moral law,” she said.
Similarly, for Protestant institutions, the sanctity of human life is a foundational Biblical belief. Scripture affirms the value of life from conception and teaches that all life is created by God in his image, she said.
Asked if students and parents at these Christian schools are typically aware of these connections, she said Students for Life anecdotally finds that they are “shocked to learn a Christian institution is ignoring traditional Biblical teachings.”
“Even some administrations are shocked to learn of the connections found on their school’s website published by lower-level staff taking it upon themselves to make the additions,” Venditto told the Fix.
[RELATED: Get Off Facebook: America Was Not Founded on Separation Between Church and State]
She said an example of this occurred at Saint Elizabeth University, which issued an apology in response to the project and severed all connections with the abortion industry. At least 20 more schools have similarly cut 26 ties with Planned Parenthood following the report.
“Since the start of the Christian Schools Project [in 2021], 66 schools have removed connections with the abortion industry,” she said.
Other schools with infractions, however, have either not responded to Students for Life’s contact attempts or have refused to cut their abortion ties.
“For example, a faculty member at St. John Fisher University praised Planned Parenthood as ‘an accurate, medically sound’ organization when responding to our outreach,” Venditto said. “At Otterbein University, the administration stated they ‘cannot meet [our] request to remove Planned Parenthood’ from a campus map without explanation.”
Schools that received an “F” grade for four or more infractions, such as Boston College, Cornell College, American University, and Emory University, as well as Planned Parenthood, did not respond to requests for comment via email this week.
The Students for Life report also revealed that “Christian schools’ support for abortion increased annually by 10% since 2022 in the wake of Roe’s reversal.”
At the same time, however, “Christian schools earning an ‘A+’ grade by supporting their local Pregnancy Help Center increased 32%.”
Image: Planned Parenthood in St. Paul by Fibonacci Blue on Wikimedia Commons
