Democrats Are Endangering College Women to Score Political Points

Democrat Party leaders and organizations are flooding college campuses with chemical abortion drugs. That could be a major threat to the health and safety of young women as well as their unborn babies, along with perpetuating a culture of anti-life extremism.

Illinois became the latest state to join in this disturbing trend when it passed a law last month requiring all public universities and community colleges to either provide chemical abortion drugs or help students obtain them from other providers, such as Planned Parenthood. Democrat Governor JB Pritzker, pegged as a potential 2028 presidential hopeful, hailed the legislation as a move to “protect reproductive rights” and “enshrine women’s access to critical care into state law.”

“I’m proud to be taking these steps, but I will not rest on this. Because we know that anti-choice extremists won’t,” Gov. Pritzker said, referring to Americans who oppose the killing of preborn babies. “We will continue to activate and protest and march and deliver until every woman in this state gets the health care she deserves.”

Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton added: “As Donald Trump and his administration continue to pull every lever they can to rip rights away from women, Illinois is making sure every woman, at every stage of life, can get the legal care they need from providers they trust.”

The Land of Lincoln joins other Democrat-run states in pushing abortion drugs, such as mifepristone, onto college students. Like many bad ideas, California started the trend. In 2019, it passed a law that “requires all the state’s 33 public university campuses to provide abortion pills,” according to NPR.

“As other states and the federal government go backward, restricting reproductive freedom, in California we are moving forward, expanding access and reaffirming a woman’s right [to] choose,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in 2019 when he signed the bill.

Massachusetts followed in 2022, with nominally Republican Governor Charlie Baker signing the bill. New York then followed with its own extreme law in 2023. Governor Kathy Hochul used the same talking points heard over and over to defend the legislation.

“As anti-choice extremists and judges continue to roll back abortion rights across the country, we are fighting back here in New York,” Hochul said. “Under my watch, I will continue to ensure that New York remains a safe harbor for those in need of care.”

Of course, references to “care” and “reproductive freedom” obscure the facts about how dangerous abortion pills can be for the women who take them.

To begin with, college health centers are often not equipped with the technology or know-how to properly diagnose the age or condition of a pregnancy. This puts young women at risk because the drugs cannot be used for an ectopic pregnancy or after 10 weeks of gestation.

“Serious complications includ[ing] severe bleeding, infection, and undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy” can occur even if the drugs are used properly, according to a Heritage Foundation report. This poses another problem for many students, as colleges usually do not have emergency rooms on campus unless they happen to have an affiliation with a hospital.

Yet in a brazen disregard for human life – both mother and child – Illinois Democrats amended their bill to remove a requirement that universities “enter into a referral agreement with a tertiary care facility with obstetrics and gynecological services in the event of complication from medication abortion or suspected complicated pregnancy prior to dispensing medication abortion.”

There is no denying just how tragic and completely avoidable the consequences from this legislation could be. Thanks to Illinois Democrats, if a college medical center provides abortion pills to a female student when it is physically unsafe for her to take them, and then that student is bleeding out in her dorm room, there is no requirement that the school have a plan in place to help her access emergency care.

Other data underscores the inherent risks of the abortion drugs. An Ethics and Public Policy Center report, for instance, found that “10.93 percent of women experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion.” The study relied on six years of data on “865,727 prescribed mifepristone abortions.”

In other words, this means that one in ten female college students who get abortion drugs from their college medical center – and potentially even more given that most medical centers aren’t even equipped to know whether it is safe to prescribe those drugs – could face life-threatening complications.

Adverse reactions to abortion drugs are likely to increase following actions from President Joe Biden eliminating many safeguards on the prescribing of the pills, such as requirements that women receive the drugs in person and meet with a doctor after taking them. Already, there is data to suggest emergency room visits have increased due to the relaxing of these common-sense guidelines.

But all of these horrifying consequences are apparently of no concern for Democrat leaders so long as they can tout their support for so-called “reproductive rights.” To them, female college students potentially dying in their dorm rooms or suffering permanent scarring from infection is acceptable if as many students as possible have access to abortion drugs – and as long as the campaign checks from the abortion industry keep clearing.

By pushing abortion pills onto college campuses without proper safeguards, Democrats are gambling with young women’s lives in order to score cheap political points – and it is mothers and their unborn children who will pay the price.

Matt Lamb is a contributor for AMAC Newsline and an associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.