On Tuesday, Campus Reform reported that the student senate at UC-Berkeley passed a bill urging the student health center to implement on-campus medication abortions. Such a bill largely escaped coverage and students’ radar.
Students for Life at Berkeley released a statement when contacted by Red Alert Politics:
This is exactly the kind of callous attitude that forces students to choose between their child and their education, which no student should have to do. The Students for Life club at Berkeley is dedicated to not only educating their peers on the atrocity of abortion but also offering tangible resources for pregnant and parenting students. We are willing and ready to support these students facing unplanned pregnancies so that they aren’t forced to choose between their child and their education.
As for the ASUC resolution, it deserves no further consideration. Education is the primary function of professors, not to pay for abortion. To suggest that they take a pay cut to fund student abortions is absurd.
The bill suggests that without abortion, students cannot be successful. The purposes of the bill read:
- There is an unmet need of medication abortion to students and UHS has the necessary resources to provide medication abortion.
- When medication abortion is not available at UHS, students who are seeking an abortion face financial, time, and travel constraint burdens that create negative impacts on academic performance and mental health.
- UHS is a health center dedicated to meeting the health needs of students in order for students to be able to upkeep their academic well-being. Abortion is a common health-care service and access to abortion is necessary and relevant in student life.
The bill fails to take into account what kind of “burdens” and “negative impacts” an abortion could create for students. It also ignores differing views.
Women constitute 52.1 percent of undergraduate students, and 46 percent percent of graduate students. Surely not all will become pregnant? And, who is to say those who do will want an abortion?
Aanchal Chugh, the bill’s sponsor shared with Campus Reform she does not even believe students should have to pay for their own abortions:
The student senate’s resolution is not only dangerous because it will end the lives of unborn children. It also forces such a view on an entire student body and faculty.
