We know that Planned Parenthood has been accused in multiple states of crimes such as forgery, fraud, doing illegal late-term abortions, covering up statutory rape, practicing unsafely, and trafficking in fetal body parts. We know of their racist roots and continued racist practices. And we know Planned Parenthood commits the majority of abortions in the United States, the majority of abortions are on college-aged women. Simply put: we are their targets.
To fight back, SFLA is asking all student pro-life groups to join the campaign to put Planned Parenthood on the defensive. So much has come out in the past decade regarding Planned Parenthood’s corrupt practices, and it is time we take back our campuses for LIFE. So join SFLA and consider leading your group in some or all of the activities listed below.
Thankfully, we know that not every campus will have an active Planned Parenthood VOX Chapter or Planned Parenthood on or near campus. However, your group can still be involved by adapting these strategies and actions towards your campus health center and local abortion clinic.
Please know that there are two main strategies for how to change your campus for Life and help hurt Planned Parenthood’s business. One is to take direct action and make a call for action against Planned Parenthood, local abortion facility, or pro-abortion campus health center in the hope of getting media, community, alum, parent, and student pressure for change.
The other is to take indirect action or a more subtle approach to reduce the need and want for Planned Parenthood by working on campus with your administration to provide real alternatives and also highlight the pain behind abortion which will ultimately hurt Planned Parenthood . Consider your campus environment before launching a campaign on your campus. Contact SFLA for one-on-one instruction to develop a strategy that will best work for your group and campus.
Do Your Research
Investigate Planned Parenthood’s presence all around you – In order to effectively embark on your own battle against Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion culture on your campus, you must arm yourself and your group with all the available information, facts, and truths involved in Planned Parenthood’s operation. This can be done best by going into Planned Parenthood’s own territory and gathering observations and documentation from them.
- Campus Health Center – Go to your Campus Health Center as any young woman on campus asking for help regarding an unplanned pregnancy. Find out who they refer you to for help and ask if they know of any funding services through the administration or the government to help with an abortion, adoption, or raising your child. You need to find out what your Health Center is saying to women and what your tuition money is paying for. Remember to record all information during/after your visit.
- Campus VOX/Planned Parenthood Chapter – Look VOX up on your campus to know if they are present and active. Look into what they do by attending their meetings as an interested student, observe their events, follow them on social media, and listen to what their potential recruits and leaders say in the classroom.
- Find Out Where the Money Goes – Do research on tuition, alumni donations, and state funding to know where these funds are used and distributed on campus. Many campuses fund referrals to Planned Parenthood and some contribute to abortion costs. Know what funding the VOX chapter gets as opposed to your group. Demand this information from your administration if you cannot find it in their public records.
- Find Out What the School Offers for Mothers and Families – Search for day care, financial aid, housing aid, diaper changing stations, and other resources for students who want to have their children and finish school. Know where the funding is coming from and make a list of what should be added to your campus to create a life-affirming environment.
- Do a Pregnant on Campus Event– This event will help you determine what is lacking and what is working on your own campus, so you can appeal for and appraise pro-family resources on your campus.
Strategy 1: Direct Action
Cut off funds and patients from the local Planned Parenthood – Gather a large and growing consensus to push for the change your desire. Shut down and remove the presence of Planned Parenthood and their agenda from your campus by choking off their business and bottom line. When they do not make money, they will leave. Do the following steps to strengthen the momentum in this direction.
- Encourage your campus VOX chapter to talk about abortion by doing events on campus challenging them to address the issue and answer/debate you. Use this to turn people away from their message and cause.
- Do attention-grabbing events on campus that share your research and undercover work to recruit people on campus and in your community to join your cause and push for change on your campus.
- Work with the local 40 Days to Life Campaign to get a presence at the facility that is near a campus (abortion and referral locations). Go to 40DaysforLife.com to join a campaign near you.
- If there is no local 40 Days for Life Campaign in your area, start your own vigil schedule and create a constant presence of prayer and counseling outside the local Planned Parenthood facility.
- Organize large amounts of students to commit to a sit-in style protest to draw attention to school policies and the presence of Planned Parenthood and its message at your school. Have information to hand out and give to students and media stopping by your protest. Make an official appeal to the administration to change its policies before you begin or during your protest. Have speakers to announce why you are protesting pro-abortion policies on your campus.
- Do other protests. Have a large press conference-style protest with speakers and information for the media. Have local media attend and cover the event. Do a marching protest with signs and speakers at a symbolic destination. Pass around petitions during your protest present to the administration as proof of a consensus for positive change. Target students and others whose money is being used for Planned Parenthood’s agenda, such as alumni, donors, community members, and tax payers.
- Create a Facebook Group, “Throw PP off XXX’s Campus.” Create a campaign to accompany your events and protests though the Internet and social networking sites. Get a Facebook group established, so you can invite more people to your events and protests and appeal to them to sign any petitions.
- Flood the campus and local media outlets with letters to the editors and editorials. Get a debate going on in these venues, so that those reading their newspapers everyday do not forget your campaign and message.
- Start a boycott campaign against local businesses that support Planned Parenthood clinics to drive them further away from your campus and community.
- Get members of your group and those committed to your cause elected to Student Government, so they will have a voice in the decisions that affect funding and policies on your campus.
- Build relationships within the administration, so you have their ears and trust when you go to set up meetings to present your cause and persuade them to adopt your desired changes.
- Get friendly faculty and administrators on board with your campaign to help give you credibility and pressure when dealing with the administration and the media.
- Go undercover at a Planned Parenthood, another local abortion facility, or campus health center to expose the truth and use your expose to motivate others and call for change.
- Continue the previously discussed action of cutting off business to Planned Parenthood facilities with Sidewalk Counseling, Pregnancy Resource Center literature and ads, and Pregnancy Resource Center support such as bottle drives, fundraisers, and volunteer work.
Strategy 2: Indirect Action
Re-route Planned Parenthood’s customers and income to Pregnancy Resource Centers – The abortion business is lucrative, and you can hurt them easily by taking away their business and therefore their main incentive to exist near your campus. Do this by re-directing their patients to the local Pregnancy Resource Center, where women and couples in need will receive life-affirming solutions and aid throughout their pregnancy without being exploited by a business that wants her to abort for a high price. In addition, make your campus friendly to pregnant & parenting women.
- Make sure local Pregnancy Resource Center information is available at your Campus Health Center.
- Work with your Campus Health Center, administration, and pro-abortion campus organizations to discuss ways your campus can support pregnant and parenting women. Consider hosting Feminists for Life on campus to hold their Pregnancy Resources Forum to help you achieve this goal. Flood your campus with local Pregnancy Resource Center literature and advertisements through campus-wide handouts, flyers, posters, and awareness events. Such events may include bringing in a post-abortive women, adoption experts, or birthmothers.
- Counsel women outside of Planned Parenthood facilities and persuade them to visit the local the Pregnancy Resource Center before they make any decisions about their pregnancies. Offer their literature, explain what they provide, give out directions to the center, and offer to give rides to women who need them. Reach out to Sidewalk Advocates for Life to learn more about sidewalk counseling.
- Celebrate pro-life choices with baby showers on your campuses and offer continued aid to women and families (for example, free babysitting) on campus for students who are raising children and going to school.
- Boost your local Pregnancy Resource Center resources by working with them as volunteers and fundraise money and supplies on campus to donate to your local centers, so they have what they need to aid women and families you direct to their services.
Next Steps
Continue to follow up and prevent backsliding on policies – After your successful campaign, you will have to remain constantly vigilant that your work remains and continues to grow.
- Do regular Campus Health Center checkups to make sure proper literature is presented and your tuition and student money never promotes abortion or Planned Parenthood.
- Increase your money flow for further events and pressure by contacting local pro-lifers, parents, and alumni and asking for donations to your cause. Have them invest in the cause so they are more likely to help you in your campaign through petitions, letters, and phone calls.
- Start a boycott campaign against local businesses that support Planned Parenthood facilities to drive them further away from your campus and community.
- Push Planned Parenthood further and further away from your school by working with members of the surrounding community to eradicate it from an ever-expanding regional boundary.
- Work with and volunteer for local politicians who support your cause and vow to help you push Planned Parenthood away from your school, community, state, region, and then country.