Washington lawmakers seek to mandate abortion pill at state colleges

Washington State politicians have introduced a bill that would require abortion pills to be dispensed on public college campuses.

Key Takeaways:

• Senate Bill 5826 (along with companion House bill HB 2535) would require public secondary institutions with on-campus health centers to make chemical abortions available.

• Several other states, like California and Illinois, already have such mandates in place.

• Colleges have typically opposed these requirements, arguing they do not have the ability to care for students who may experience abortion complications.

The Details:

Democratic State Senator T’wina Nobles introduced SB 5826 in the Senate, which is now being debated at the Senate Committee on Higher Education & Workforce Development. “Students should not have to choose between their health and their education,” Nobles said at the hearing. “Students should be able to go to their campus and thrive.”

Companion bill HB 2535 was introduced in the state House on January 16 and was referred to the House Committee on Postsecondary Education & Workforce.

Jean Hill with the Washington State Catholic Conference argued that such a measure would encourage college students to see their options as extremely limited — get an abortion to remain in school, or keep the baby and drop out.

“As a state, we should be appalled that women still face barriers to achieving their higher education goals if pregnant,” Hill said. “Rather than promote a right to take life, we would encourage you to ensure pregnant individuals have the same rights to work, attend school and meet their basic needs and succeed as their non-pregnant peers.”

If the bill is passed, it would require all public colleges and universities to dispense abortion pills if they have on-campus health centers; all campuses would have to create a web page with information about abortion, prenatal care, and other “reproductive health” services. 

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The Big Picture:

The state of Washington has, since 1991's Initiative 120, held that abortion up to so-called "viability" is a "right" in the state. And SB 5826/HB 2535 needlessly repeats the propagandistic refrain as if it is reality: "... Access to abortion is a human right, an integral part of essential health care, and vital for promoting public health."

The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute classifies the state as "very protective" of abortion. However, there is a difference between "protecting" access to abortion and throwing open the floodgates to encourage its use by requiring it to be stocked in places like college campuses. Yet, the latter appears to be the eventual outcome in pro-abortion states like Washington.

California is one of the states that requires all public colleges and universities to dispense the abortion pill, but before it became law, university officials fought against the effort.

“Currently our CSU health centers offer basic health services, however, the administration of medications still requires a level of expertise that our health center staff may not have,” Toni Molle, a California State University spokeswoman, said. Molle also expressed concern that the bill, if passed, would “impose severe costs for liability insurance, safety improvements, medical training and round-the-clock phone support for medical emergencies.”

A similar bill was passed in Illinois, and initially, colleges were able to opt out. However, even that 'choice' was soon taken away, thanks to the state's Democratic supermajority and pro-abortion billionaire governor JB Pritzker (who supports abortion so stridently that he founded his own pro-abortion 501(c)4, Think Big America, to promote abortion amendments in states across the nation).

The director of the McKinley Student Health Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had originally refused to stock abortion pills, explaining that "McKinley does not have the expertise in-house to provide abortion services," and that abortion was easily accessible off-campus. It made no difference.

Other colleges have installed Plan B emergency contraceptive-dispensing machines, and still others partner with Planned Parenthood, the nation's top abortion corporation.

Zoom In:

The reality is that chemical abortion by pill is not as low-risk as abortion activists want people to believe.

One recent analysis found, through examining insurance data regarding “serious adverse events” (complications) from mifepristone (the abortion pill), that there is a 22 times higher rate than that currently reported by the FDA, with nearly 11% of women experiencing complications such as hemorrhaging, infection, sepsis, transfusions, hospitalization, and more.

Another study, conducted in Ireland between January 2019 and December 2022, found that 12% of women who underwent chemical abortions experienced complications severe enough that they had to visit emergency departments, with 16% of those women suffering incomplete abortions. Still another study showed that women were severely unprepared for how painful the chemical abortion process would be.

Yet pro-abortion politicians still promote the abortion pill as a solution for college students, even on campus. This means students will undergo chemical abortions alone, in their dorm rooms, without any physician supervision.

Meanwhile, other colleges are offering abortion alternatives, helping women to get their degrees without having to kill their children.

The Bottom Line:

It's true that students should be able to thrive on their college campuses — but they should be aided in doing so regardless of pregnancy status. The promotion of abortion on college campuses does not create a greater acceptance or more assistance for students who choose to keep their children while seeking a higher education; instead, it creates an environment where discrimination against pregnant students is more likely when the 'easy' and accessible option of abortion is rejected.

Women deserve better than to be pressured into abortion, falsely led to believe that choosing death for innocent human beings — their own children — is the only way they can be successful.