Students for Life commends Holy Cross

In a recently released study by Students for Life concerning Christian schools in America maintaining an association with Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, the College of the Holy Cross was commended for its policy on students who need help with pregnancies.

The report, released last month and reported on by the National Catholic Register , said the group investigated 784 Christian schools, which included 237 Catholic schools. It found that 22 Catholic schools had some association with the abortion provider. 

After Students for Life contacted the schools that had links to the abortion provider, a third of them cut those ties, and the number dropped to 69 schools, including eight Catholic institutions, the newspaper reported. 

The report examined websites of Christian schools in the fall of 2021 and confirmed links to Planned Parenthood that included promoting the organization for internships,  student resources, advertising, volunteering, and careers. The schools were contacted in the fall of 2021, giving them a chance to remove references to Planned Parenthood, according to the National Catholic Register story.

Fourteen of the 22 Catholic schools the group contacted severed their connection to the organization after being informed of it, the report indicated.

Lauren Enriquez, deputy media strategist with Students for Life, told the Register that the report was meant to hold these schools accountable to “the students that go there, the alumni, especially if they’re donors, and parents who are going to be paying their kids’ tuition to go to these schools.” According to their latest annual report, Planned Parenthood performed 354,871 abortions in the past year. 

The seven Catholic schools that the Register found still had links to the abortion provider on their websites were St. Michael’s College in Vermont, Sacred Heart University of Connecticut, The College of St. John Fisher in New York, Marymount University in Virginia, The College of St. Rose in New York, St. Joseph’s University of Pennsylvania, and Felician University in New Jersey. None of the schools returned the Register’s request for comments on the report’s findings.

Enriquez praised Holy Cross College for its pastoral care offerings for pregnant students, including a promise to give pregnant students “a caring, supportive environment” and work with them to “develop a plan” for completing their degree, the paper reported.

Enriquez told the Register students should contact her group at – christianschools@studentsforlife.org – if they learn of the abortion industry being promoted on a Catholic campus.