Anti-Abortion Advocacy Is Rising on College Campuses
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Right-wing groups have long seen universities across the U.S. as bastions of the left, reflective of the typical leftward skew of youth voting blocks. But anti-abortion advocacy groups have a small–and growing–presence on college campuses.
Public support for legal abortion has slightly increased since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to the Pew Research Center, and a majority of Americans have steadily reported supporting legal abortion for several years. Many anti-abortion organizations on campus said that they experienced a significant increase in activity following the Roe decision. Leah Raymond is the event coordinator for the club. She says that it was “bare-bones” in 2021. Now, there are around 80 members. Raymond said the group is now flourishing.
“Membership is growing,” Raymond said. “There are more conservative students who want to be seen.” The Pro-Life Club at Princeton University has also grown in the last academic year. It now boasts more than 80 students, making it the largest student group on campus. Olivia Barnes and Olivia Kaiser founded Bobcats for Life at Ohio University after Roe. The club estimates that it has grown from two founding members to around ten members.
Other clubs, like Choose Life at Yale (CLAY), have increased their on-campus activity. CLAY has increased the number of events that it hosts at a campus, which it considers to be “already overwhelmingly anti-abortion.” The Yale Daily News reported last year strong support for abortion rights on campus. )
Anti-abortion advocacy groups at Catholic universities have also seen a strong increase in membership. The club’s website claims it has over 700 members, making it the country’s largest anti-choice student group. The club’s website claims it has more than 700 members, making it the country’s biggest anti-choice student group.
In 2024, Benedictine College’s Ravens Respect Life “saw record growth to over 300 members” according to club secretary Daniel Gorrell.
Many clubs credited the overturning of Roe and the rise of the national anti-abortion movement as a catalyst for increased interest and membership.
“There was definitely a spike towards May of 2022 because we all knew that Dobbs was going to be coming out that summer,” James Markis, a member of the Boston College Pro-Life Club said. “When I came back in September of 2022, we doubled our attendance, with people just wanting to learn more about what was happening post-Roe.”
For the University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) Students for Life chapter, 2022 was a critical year to build its base. “The rise of the alt-right, especially in online spaces, and the increase in acceptance of holding those beliefs has created a space perfectly shaped for anti-abortion movement.”
“It definitely resulted in more engagement,” Cooper said.
“The rise of the alt-right, especially on social media platforms, and… Philip Cooper, the club’s president, pointed to Dobbs as a “national beacon of hope” for the movement’s ability to “make a difference.”
“It definitely resulted in more engagement,” Cooper said.
“The rise of the alt-right, especially in online spaces, and the rise in acceptability in holding those beliefs, has created a space perfectly shaped for the anti-abortion movement.”
– Laila Salaam, lead Reproaction organizer
On campus, these groups focus on anti-abortion education and building a “community of life.”
Clubs claim to host diaper drives, offer babysitting services, fundraise for parents who cannot afford child care, and volunteer at anti-choice pregnancy centers (also called “crisis pregnancy centers”), which aim to dissuade pregnant people from seeking abortion care.
But there can be a catch: “Crisis pregnancy center” resources often come with additional work for those seeking aid, such as requiring people to “earn” their resources by attending church services, watching anti-choice propaganda videos, or participating in religion-based workshops.
Anti-abortion student groups also arm themselves with “pro-life apologetics”–or, “the arguments and defenses that we have for our position,” Barnes said. She added that these apologetics promote the idea that “babies are provably, scientifically alive” and that “innocent human life has a right not to be forcibly killed.” Apologetics, however, are not backed in science or fact–in this case, they are largely religious justifications for anti-abortion arguments.
These student clubs act as hubs for the anti-abortion movement. Clubs host their own conferences, attend the March for Life, and host prominent anti-abortion advocates.
For example, Georgetown University hosts the O’Conner Conference, the country’s largest annual student-run anti-choice conference. Raymond, co-director of the 2025 conference described it as a “great eight hours or more of pro-life dialog, looking at issues around the U.S., and the world.”
This event has been “totally revived” after 2021. Yale University also hosts an annual conference that “brings students from Ivy League campuses and Connecticut universities together to hear from profound speakers on pro-life issues, share and discuss the pro-life efforts of our respective groups, and grow in self-confidence to serve our communities,” Smith wrote in an email. Students for Life of America boasts that they serve more than 1,500 campuses on their website. The religious nonprofit has a lot of money: According to its 990 tax forms, in 2023 the group earned $14.6 million (up from 2012). According to its website, SFLA’s “Judeo Christian statement of faith” governs the organization. It also actively works with colleges to develop student activist efforts. Choose Life at Yale hosted SFLA training sessions, and Boston College Pro Life Club works with March for Life, another national pro-life organization.
SFLA frequently speaks at college campuses, such as the 2022 “Abortion is Not Right Campus Tour,” the 2023 “What is a Person? Campus Tour” or SFLA president Kristen Hawkins’ 2024 “No Abortion, No Exceptions” Tour, where representatives preach against choice arguments on campuses across the nation. SFLA provides training, networking, and free tools like event guides, social media graphics, and downloadable fliers to help students join the “pro-life generation” and recruit others, pouring money and support from dedicated staff members to help students start or grow SFLA chapters.
Lead Reproaction organizer and abortion doula Laila Salaam–who has previously written an op-ed for Rewire News Group–attributed the anti-abortion movement’s rise to the alt-right.
“The rise of the alt-right, especially in online spaces, and the rise in acceptability in holding those beliefs, has created a space perfectly shaped for the anti-abortion movement,” Salaam said.
SFLA’s strength lies in their funding and messaging, she added.
“They have a canned response to every single pro-choice/pro-repro talking point,” Salaam said. “The fact that an organization like SFLA has even been able to start is really a testament to the aggressive way that they are pursuing students and creating a pro-life stronghold voice for themselves.”
“Our approach is to be the louder voice, putting our energy into our own efforts, and making sure we’re reaching as many people on campus as possible.”
– Sam Yamashita, president of Princeton Students for Reproductive Justice
Despite the national funding and increased campus engagement, the anti-abortion student groups RNG spoke with remain a political minority on their own campuses, which tend to skew left.
“Yale students, not unlike many college students across the country, are generally pro-choice by default,” Smith said. “Engaging with the community thus means presenting a viewpoint many students see as unconventional, only held by middle-aged Republicans, or even extremist.”
The overturning of Roe pointed the national spotlight towards the small, but growing, on-campus anti-abortion movement, and it has only galvanized youth advocacy for the restriction of reproductive rights.
“Pro-life advocacy groups have come to the understanding that a law in of itself is not exactly the best outcome, or the final outcome,” Raymond said.
Groups now are shifting their attention to advocating against the availability of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in medication abortions.
Anti-choice clubs have also faced a variety of pushback from students, ranging from polite discourse to destruction of chalk displays and signs. Barnes reported that the Ohio University club faced significant pushback, and the club leadership had contacted police on several occasions due to perceived threats of harm. Students from UNH and Georgetown University reported that 80-90 percent of anti abortion club members were white. Boston College, Ohio University and UNH also had student representatives who confirmed this. Some clubs reported a small presence of Latinx or Asian students, with most members identifying as Christian or Catholic.
While Raymond and Cooper each argued that women are more likely than men to be anti-abortion, the Pew Research Center has found the opposite to be true. This gendered dynamic is a reflection of the wider political divide that emerged between women and men after the 2024 presidential election. An AP VoteCast survey of 120,000 voters showed young men shifted right in the 2024 presidential election, with Republicans winning the 18 to 29-year-old demographic by 14 points.
Markis, who previously served as the president of the Boston College Republicans, attributed young men’s shift rightward to them not feeling “safe in the Democratic Party.”
“They’re told constantly that men are all sexist and racist and homophobic–they’re what’s wrong with society,” Markis said. He argued that young men felt more connected to and accepted by the Republican Party under Trump, and he’s seen it on Boston College’s campus.
Pro-choice groups on college campuses are combating this increase in anti-abortion membership and rhetoric. Planned Parenthood Generation Action Club at UNH (PPGA) has changed its strategy in order to counter the rise of anti-choice activism. The club used to host weekly protests before the Roe decision was overturned. It had around 15 members. Post-Dobbs, the club shifted towards providing gaps in health care, working with university administration to establish a vending machine for Plan B on campus.
“We’re seeing more productivity with this approach,” said Margaret Miller, president of UNH’s PPGA club. “Mainly, our goal right now is creating a space where conversations like this can happen, where we’re just talking about education.”
Similarly, Princeton Students for Reproductive Justice (PSRJ) shifted from general reproductive health advocacy, such as information sessions, to taking on a more political focus with their activities. They’re currently planning phone banking sessions, hosting speakers from organizations like Planned Parenthood, and training students to be abortion clinic escorts.
“We need to think about alternative ways to provide life-saving care,” PSRJ President Sam Yamashita said.
Princeton Pro-Life’s increased presence and the country’s broader political shift is causing PSRJ to re-examine its advocacy and services.
“Our approach is to be the louder voice, putting our energy into our own efforts, and making sure we’re reaching as many people on campus as possible,” Yamashita said.
CORRECTION:
A previous version of this article misstated the name of the organization Students for Life of America.
