On the face of it, House Bill 6914, passed just days before the annual anti-abortion “March for Life” in late January, sounds benign. Its introductory paragraph seems straightforward: “to require institutional higher education to disseminate information on the rights of, and accommodations and resources for, pregnant students.”
But a few paragraphs later, the bill reveals its true mission: fearmongering about the alleged physical and emotional harm caused by abortion. Among its unsubstantiated claims: People who end unwanted pregnancies are 115 percent more likely to develop suicidal ideation, 220 percent more likely to abuse marijuana and 110 percent more likely to rely on alcohol. Furthermore, the bill misleadingly claims that students who have abortions are more likely to become depressed or anxious than their peers and, additionally, suffer from physical ailments that rarely impact others in their age group. It is worth noting that the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Physicians for Reproductive Health, and numerous other medical experts have consistently debunked these assertions.
That the bill zeroes in on college students is not an accident and is a direct result of a 2020 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report which found that 30 percent of all U.S. abortions are performed on people between the ages of 20 and 24. According to bill sponsor Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), “Women on college campuses may fear institutional reprisal, loss of athletic scholarship, and possible negative impact on academic opportunities during pregnancy and after childbirth” — fears that prompted her to write, and push for, passage of the act. (Hinson did not respond to Truthout’s request for an interview.)
As written, the legislation amends the Higher Education Act of 1965 and prohibits both public and private colleges and universities from encouraging students to have abortions. “They should be surrounded by support and empowered to continue their education and their pregnancies,” Hinson told her colleagues at a hearing on the measure.
But the act, which has no financial allocations behind it, does not do this. Instead, it puts the onus on higher ed to “disseminate information” to pregnant students about the location and hours of resources in all student handbooks. Such “resources” include crisis pregnancy centers — organizations that typically offer free pregnancy tests and sonograms, counsel against abortion, and provide minimal short-term support, from diapers to formula, alongside a hefty helping of misinformation. The legislation further requires that this information be shared at student orientations, on college websites, and at campus health and counseling centers. Abortion, unsurprisingly, is never mentioned as a pregnancy option.
“From the name you’d get the impression that the Pregnant Students’ Rights Act was giving pregnant students’ rights and support,” Bayliss Fiddiman, director of educational equity and senior counsel at the Washington, D.C.-based National Women’s Law Center, told Truthout. “But it does nothing to provide the resources that pregnant, and later parenting, students need to complete their education.”
Already, Fiddiman said, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects such students by “prohibiting discrimination on the........