Congressional Republicans Take Action Against Universities That Provide Abortion Pills
Republican lawmakers led by Reps. Mary Miller of Illinois and Chip Roy of Texas and Senate Pro-Life Caucus Chairman GOP Sen. Steve Daines of Montana teamed up to introduce an anti-abortion bill Wednesday in both chambers of Congress.
The 2021 Protecting Life on College Campus Act would bar U.S. government agencies from handing out federal funds to any higher education institution “that hosts or is affiliated with a student-based service site that provides abortion drugs or abortions to students of the institution or to employees of the institution or site,” according to a draft of the legislation.
The bill defines a “student-based service site” as any health clinic that “meets the definition of a school-based health center” and “provides, at a minimum, comprehensive primary health services during school hours by health professionals.”
Also defined as such a site is any clinic located on the campus of a federally funded higher education institute that provides “health care services (including primary health services, family planning services, telehealth services, and pharmaceutical services, without regard to whether the services are provided by employees of the clinic or contracted providers) to students.”
Should this bill become law, any college or university seeking federal funding must submit an annual report to the secretary of education and the secretary of health and human services.
They will not receive federal money unless they satisfactorily demonstrate that no “student-based service site” hosted on or affiliated with their campuses offers abortion drugs and abortions to their students or employees or the site’s employees.
The legislation “would be another important step in the right direction to help save the lives of the unborn and to protect the safety of our girls,” Miller said at a Capitol Hill news conference, according to Fox News.
“The abortion industry does not advocate for women, as they constantly claim to do. They exploit young women but leave them to deal with the consequences and severe potential side effects all on their own,” Miller said in a Wednesday news release.
The sponsors of this legislation said it came in response to California’s “radical chemical abortion pill mandate on college campuses.”
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed bills in 2019 that would require his state’s 34 public higher education institutes to provide abortion medication and increase access to abortion services on campus.
As the sponsors of the Wednesday legislation said, starting in 2023, Californian public universities must stock up on chemicals that help with foeticide in the name of the Democrat-run government’s push for “reproductive freedom.”
The lawmakers hope this bill will bring to an end to such abortions on college campuses.
The abortion industry makes clear that it has no concern for the wellbeing of women by advocating for access to chemical abortions on campuses, affirming what Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) stated, “the abortion industry is about death & lying.” https://t.co/dvR2Hs8nvl
— Family Research Council (@FRCdc) July 23, 2021
“For too long the abortion industry has been taking advantage of vulnerable women and now, blue states like California are beginning to require campus clinics to provide chemical abortions on demand,” Daines said.
“These do-it-yourself abortions put young women in dangerous situations that they are oftentimes forced to deal with alone in their dorm room. This not only ends the life of an unborn child, it endangers the mother’s life as well. We cannot allow campus health centers to turn into abortion clinics.”
“A college dorm room is no place to have a do-it-yourself abortion, and the American taxpayer should not be paying for the destruction of innocent human life on our college campuses,” Roy said. “But, as we already know, what the abortion industry really cares about are profits — not the welfare of mothers or the integrity of higher learning.”
“The Protecting Life on College Campuses Act is about guarding young college women and their unborn children from the predatory abortion industry’s radical and reckless push for universal access to abortions,” he said.
The bill seems highly unlikely to get through the Democrat-controlled Congress and President Joe Biden.
Nonetheless, several pro-life organizations welcomed the lawmakers’ efforts to do something rather than sit idle as abortion advocates in positions of power have their way.
College dorm rooms should not be turned into abortion clinics.
Pro-life representatives propose “Protecting Life on College Campus Act” which would bar federal funds from universities that provide either surgical or chemical abortions. https://t.co/B8SQ6RTRQ7
— March for Life (@March_for_Life) July 23, 2021
“We applaud Rep. Chip Roy and Senator Steve Daines for moving to protect women at a time when many universities will not,” Tom McClusky of March for Life Action said in a statement.
“Having the chemical abortion pill readily available on college campuses is detrimental to the safety, health, and well-being of students,” said Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America.
“As Concerned Women for America has Young Women for America chapters on college campuses across the country, this issue is critically important to us and our college leaders,” she said. “Out of care and compassion for the young women on college campuses, we applaud you for introducing the Protecting Life on College Campus Act of 2021.”
The office of Democrat Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, co-chairwoman of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, did not immediately respond to The Western Journal’s request for comment and question about how she and the caucus plan to counter the bill.
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