Report: One in 10 Christian colleges maintained ties to Planned Parenthood in 2024

A 2024 report, published by Students for Life of America’s (SFLA) Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement, shows that more than one in ten American Christian colleges and universities maintained some kind of relationship with Planned Parenthood last year.

SFLA investigated 732 U.S. colleges and universities affiliated with different Christian churches, for the fourth year in a row, and found that 83 of these institutions had ties to the abortion business chain. Additionally, the support of Christian schools for abortion has increased by 10% each year since 2022, the study found.

The report, as part of SFLA’s Christian Schools Project, aimed “to raise public awareness of the reality that Christian schools have ties to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry so that change can be made,” a summary of the report reads. “Without this strategy, the future of Christian schools may look even more bleak.”

All 732 of the institutions of higher education analyzed in the study, as “Christian schools,” are affiliated with Christ-centered denominations and publicly claim historical Christian faith in their founding; the list of schools was compiled based on this criteria and online databases including Niche’s 2024 Best Christian Colleges in America and the USCCB’s Catalog of Catholic Colleges and Universities in the United States.

The Methodology overview of the report shows that The Pro-life Generation’s Strategic Initiative Team led the research during the 2023-2024 school year, analyzing college websites for “infractions”– collaboration with the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood. Infractions included websites listing Planned Parenthood or other abortion organizations as health resources, pro-abortion internship opportunities, volunteer opportunities, campus events, and general statements. 

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The report notes that the “wordsmithing” tactic of framing abortion as “healthcare,” is now used by some Christian colleges, and that “almost half (42%) of all documented infractions promoted Planned Parenthood to students by listing the abortion vendor as a ‘reliable and trusted health resource’ either from the school health center’s landing page directly or within a linked document of local resources.”

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The following are several egregious instances of Christian of colleges and universities collaborating with Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry as documented in the report:

• Wesleyan College in Georgia, which is affiliated with the Methodist church, warns students on its website of Georgia’s six-week abortion law and tells students, “It is crucial for you to seek abortion care as soon as possible once you decide to terminate your pregnancy.”

• Saint Louis University, a Catholic institution in Missouri, allowed Law Professor Brietta Clark to give a campus talk entitled, Dobbs v. Jackson: Implications for Reproduction, Health, and Liberty. Clark’s publications demonstrate her promotion of abortion as “healthcare.” She has since become the Dean of Loyola Marymount University School of Law in California, another Catholic institution. 

• The Catholic University of Notre Dame in 2023 hosted a campus-approved, promoted talk featuring an “abortion doula” who discussed “abortion care.”

SFLA researchers contacted the colleges with documented infractions during the summer of 2024, and more than 20 of the institutions subsequently removed ties to Planned Parenthood. Since the beginning of SFLA’s Christian Schools Project in 2021, 66 schools have severed connections to the abortion industry, according to The College Fix.

Michelle Venditto, who directs the strategic initiatives team at SFLA, told The College Fix, “Because these Christian institutions are affiliated with a Christ-centered denomination and historical Christian faith, they should adhere to historical Biblical teachings.”