Students for Life of America has launched a major college campus campaign that aims to expose nationwide little-known facts among students about Planned Parenthood, including that the agency provides 915 abortions daily and that its efforts are almost exclusively abortion-related.
Called the “Planned Parenthood Project,” the campaign’s campus display consists of 915 small wooden crosses painted the shade of pink associated with the agency, as well as large billboards displaying facts about the organization pulled from its annual report, such as that 92 percent of its family planning services are abortions.
The display will visit 41 universities across 20 states over the next eight weeks, starting with Regis University in Colorado on Wednesday.
Students for Life of America did a mini-version of the tour in the spring at eight campuses, and the president of the group said it went so well they decided to launch this latest campaign, the largest coordinated pro-life effort to hit campuses this fall.
“The goals is simple – we just want to tell people what Planned Parenthood really does,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, the nation’s largest pro-life youth organization with 759 chapters.
She said one of their polls over the summer found that 59 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds questioned didn’t know Planned Parenthood provide abortions, calling that finding “shocking.”
“Most people think, ‘Oh they are just there to help women and every once in a while a girl gets in trouble they’ll do an abortion,’” Hawkins said in an interview with The College Fix. “Planned Parenthood is an abortion business.”
What’s more, 79 percent of Planned Parenthoods are located within 5 miles of a college campus, Students for Life has found, adding on its website that the aim is to “expose the nation’s abortion Goliath, Planned Parenthood, with whom they target the most – young people.”
During the spring trial run on campuses, students would come up to the pink display mistaking it for an actual Planning Parenthood-sanctioned one, and ask for their free condom, she said. But then, they’d start to talk to the pro-life students there and walk away with new facts about the agency, she said.
“Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion vendor but they never advertise this fact because this generation rejects abortion,” the website states. “Instead they tell young people about their contraception sales and STD screenings to keep their positive image going.”
Hawkins said it’s a false image, and one they correct among college students using the agency’s own annual report.
“Planned Parenthood’s contraception services have dropped by 12 percent and their cancer screening and prevention services have dropped by 29 percent since 2009, yet their abortions are at an all time high,” she said. “And most people don’t realize Planned Parenthood received $542 million in taxpayer funding in 2011, their largest annual total ever.”
As the tour of crosses and billboard displays travels the country, Hawkins added her main concern is pushback from college administrators at private colleges who may not allow pro-life students to set it up. Already they are fielding such concerns and the campaign has literally just begun, she said.
“We’re expecting resistance,” she said.
Jennifer Kabbany is associate editor of The College Fix.
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