In
mid-October, a member of my school’s Students for Life club discovered that
Planned Parenthood was listed among the school’s “community partners.” Being
that we attend a tiny, Christian school, this came as quite the surprise to the
group. As a member of the student newspaper, I decided to investigate further.
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| Whitworth Students for Life (J. Silberman, right) |
Community
partners are those organizations which Whitworth professors decide to use as
resources for student learning, volunteering, and internships. There were a 153
such organizations listed on the school’s website.
In addition,
Whitworth:
- Had tear-off cards on walls around campus referring pregnant women to Planned Parenthood (which have since been taken down).
- Sponsored a community bioresearch event defending Planned Parenthood from wrongdoing and praising fetal tissue research.
- Gave Planned Parenthood a booth at the school volunteer fair.
- Uses multiple textbooks which either blatantly push abortion to students or slander pro-life individuals.
You can read
the whole op-ed here
for more information.
I was, of
course, expecting a response from both sides of the abortion debate, but I
didn’t anticipate the magnitude. The story got picked up by LifeSiteNews, Life
News, Live Action, Campus Reform, Washington Times and a number of others. I
was receiving threats from hippies in California and praise from pastors in
Kansas.
Locally, the
story led to a club being formed to support abortion rights, although I do not
know as of yet whether Whitworth will allow the club to charter. They showed
up to our next Students for Life event and protested, forcefully at first,
surrounding us and our display and not letting anyone near. They moved to the
outside of the HUB once we alerted security that we had the space reserved.
The Administration Responds
On Dec. 2,
Whitworth Students for Life met with two members of school administration to
discuss the situation and suggest a few changes. Our message was threefold:
- As an institution of higher learning, we understand that it isn’t your role to take sides on political issues. Abortion, however, is not a political issue. It is an issue of immense human pain and suffering. For any institution, but especially a religiously-affiliated one, to give credence to the idea that dismembering a human being is morally acceptable is abhorrent. The school has a responsibility to stand up and be counted on this issue.
- Even if abortion weren’t so abhorrent, to affiliate with Planned Parenthood makes no business sense. For decades, Planned Parenthood has skirted around the law with ease due to their political connections. With Jeff Sessions and his 100% pro-life record as the soon-to-be U.S. Attorney General, Planned Parenthood is about to go down in flames. Whitworth needs to get off that ship soon lest they get pulled down with it.
- Whitworth should replace all links to Planned Parenthood with I-Choice, the local pregnancy resource center. Student interns, as well as pregnant women, are in much better hands there.
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| Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Spokane |
The
administrators were, however, amicable to getting I-Choice more involved on
campus. The volunteer center scheduled a meeting with them and I-Choice will be
an option for service-learning moving forward.
It was
frustrating, to say the least, to receive pushback from Christians on the idea that human
dismemberment was objectively immoral. I do think, however, a few observations
need to be made before coming to final judgement.
Bad, but not the Worst, Alas
Whitworth is
far more conservative than the vast majority of their competitors in higher
education. For instance, Pacific Lutheran University advocates “sex positivity” in some
departments and administers Next Choice and Ella pills in their health center.
Normally these pills are able to prevent conception from occurring. In the case that ovulation has already occurred, however, the pill eats away at
the uterine lining which prevents the embryo from being able to implant itself. In such cases, these pills act as abortifacients. A Lutheran
school is administering this on campus.
Around the
same time the drama at Whitworth was unfolding, a Catholic university in
Chicago had their medical students perform “mock abortions” on a papaya, with
the seeds representing the child. The University of Chicago and the University
of New Mexico have medical centers which perform second trimester abortions.
In my
original article I wrote:
“The only mitigating factor of my distaste towards the actions of the school in regard to Planned Parenthood and abortion is the fact that I know this isn’t just a Whitworth problem.”
I should have clarified
further. Relatively speaking, Whitworth is downright conservative, as hard as
that may be to believe.
 |
| Student-made posters at Whitworth University, a "conservative" Christian school |
This is not
a Whitworth problem, per se. It’s an education problem, higher education in particular.
There aren’t textbooks which accurately relay information about abortion risks
and fetal development and there aren’t many professors who care. They’re more
than happy to take their talking points straight from NARAL and Planned
Parenthood.
This doesn’t
exonerate Whitworth, but it puts their actions in perspective.
Dilemma for Christian Parents
I received
many emails from concerned parents of teens who said they will reconsider
recommending Whitworth to their kids and their neighbors. I told these parents
that no matter where they send their kids, unless it’s a straight-up Bible
College, these ideas will be pushed on them, and that Whitworth actually has
remained truer to its Christian roots than most “Christian” schools. There are
still a number of active ministries on campus and, from what I hear, a great
theology department.
Nevertheless, I
would support plans to pressure the school to cut all ties with
Planned Parenthood. If that were to happen, it would be unfortunate that an
example would be being made of a relatively conservative school, but it is
difficult for me to feel bad for a school that allows Planned Parenthood to
recruit student on campus, allows their professors to tell students that
Margaret Sanger was a hero, and gives them textbooks that depict pro-lifers as
violent misogynists.
There needs
to be wholesale change in the American education system. We’ve allowed the
pro-abortion side to run campuses and curricula for far too long.
A Silent – and Scared – Majority
The biggest
thing I learned through this ordeal has to do with the nature of the debate. In
the weeks following the publishing of the story, I was surprised to discover
that most people on campus actually agreed with me. This is surprising because
few were willing to say that publicly, and the public stream of conscious rage
displayed by dozens of abortion supporters creates the impression that they
are the majority. This finding is consistent with recent
data. According to a Students for Life survey, 53% of millennials oppose
abortion in all or most cases and 17% oppose it in all cases.
The problem
is that pro-life individuals are far more hesitant to speak up than their
pro-abortion counterparts. Despite PP’s extreme views on abortion representing
a tiny minority of Americans, their positions have been mainstreamed by the
media and the education system. Anyone who speaks against these ideas is
publicly ridiculed and even threatened. I merely got a few mild threats of
physical violence, but a previous Whitworth Students for Life president
received numerous death threats. This seems to be the preferred tactic of the Left.
If the
pro-life movement is going to succeed, it’s members are going to have to be
brave. You will be publicly dressed down. You will be called a bigot and a
misogynist, even if you’re a woman. You will be out of place on a campus where
pro-life ideas are pushed to the fringe. But once you get past that, you’ll
realize there are a lot more people on your side than you thought and also that
there’s nothing the Left can do to you that’s worse than knowing you could have
done something and didn’t.
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