Advocates for baby-killing have an uncanny ability of expanding the ways they can offend people who believe in life.
Case in point: the University of Washington’s Husky Health Center, which recently began offering abortion pills to students without requiring an ultrasound or in-person medical examination, a move that has piled controversy upon controversy and raised questions about medical ethics and taxpayer responsibility.
Owen Girard reports for The College Fix that new policy, implemented on February 10 of this year, allows students up to 10 weeks pregnant to obtain prescriptions for mifepristone and misoprostol — drugs used to induce chemical abortions — free of charge through the university’s health center.
If private companies were to do this, the sale would be disreputable, and might inspire people to stay away from the places selling the deadly drugs. But the actual sale of the drugs is not an aggressive act. Taking the pill when pregnant is the aggressive act.
But the University of Washington receives taxpayer money – which, itself, is an act of aggression -- then directs that tax money toward buying the deadly drugs and handing them to students for "free."
That aggression and the forced taxpayer subsidy of abortion should be enough to energize moral people to oppose the practice. But the added policy of not even requiring an ultrasound or in-person medical exam vastly increases the risk of physical – possibly life-threatening – harm to the mother who is making the profound error of trying to kill her child.
Critics, including pro-life advocates and medical experts, have labeled this as “medical malpractice,” arguing that it compromises student safety by bypassing critical diagnostic steps, including verifying that a pregnancy is early enough along that the abortion-inducing drugs will even work as intended without further compromising the health and life of the mother.
Related: Biden Admin Will Allow Women To Obtain Risky At-Home Abortion Pills By Mail, Citing COVID
The University of Washington process is simple and alarming. Students visit the Husky Health Center, receive a prescription without an ultrasound, and take the pills in their dorms or elsewhere, often without immediate medical supervision. Mifepristone then blocks progesterone to halt pregnancy growth, while misoprostol induces uterine cramping to expel the pregnancy - a painful, bloody process that the woman usually undergoes alone on a toilet.
Girard correctly notes that this could pose serious health risks to women seeking a chemical abortion at the university.
“Tessa Cox, (senior associate at pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute), told The Fix that without in-person medical exams, doctors aren’t able to screen for health complications, such as an ectopic pregnancy, which could impact the efficacy and safety of abortion pills.”
And Cox also told The Fix:
“Moreover, around 3-7% of the time, abortion drugs ‘fail to completely expel the dead baby and pregnancy tissue, which can require follow-up surgery or lead to hemorrhage and infection if untreated…Studies have found that abortion drugs have four times the complication rate of surgical abortion. These risks only increase with advanced pregnancy and lack of medical supervision.’”
Similarly, Esther Ripplinger, president of Human Life of Washington, called the practice an “affront to women’s intelligence,” arguing that offering abortion pills without full disclosure of risks constitutes malpractice.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, also painted a grim picture: “Imagine this is your daughter… sent off to self-abort alone in a dorm room, having no idea if severe pain and heavy bleeding… is ‘normal,’ even delivering the visible body of her baby into the toilet.” This scenario underscores the isolation and potential trauma students may face, far from the comprehensive care that some collectivists purport to provide at a university health center.
Adding another layer to the controversy is the University of Washington’s status as a public institution. In 2024, the university received over $1.2 billion in state and federal tax funding, according to its financial reports. This means that every taxpayer in Washington—and, to an extent, the nation—indirectly supports the Husky Health Center’s operations, including its new abortion pill policy.
For those who oppose abortion on ethical or medical grounds, this raises a troubling question: why should their tax dollars fund a practice they view as reckless or immoral?
For those who see the immorality of the tax-taking in the first place, one can acknowledge that the act of taking the money is unethical, regardless of the object, act, or person who receives that stolen money.
Advocates such as Ripplinger are urging pro-lifers to fight back through legal challenges, campaigns, and advocacy, even as the Washington legislature debates making the ethical morass deeper and wider with Senate Bill 5321, a bill resurrected from its death last year, and which could mandate abortion pill access at all public college health centers.
Meanwhile, the University of Washington’s decision sets a precedent that could ripple across other tax-funded campuses. As the debate intensifies, it’s clear that this policy not only affects students but also draws every taxpayer into a polarizing moral and medical fray—one where the lines between access, safety, and responsibility remain fiercely contested, and taxpayers subsidize the commercial success of the abortion-pill-mill.
And, of course, Girard reports:
“The Fix reached out to the University of Washington and the Husky Health Center via email in the last two weeks for comment on these criticisms but did not receive a response.”
What a shock. Matters of life and death, for the baby, and the mother. The government is quick to take money away from taxpayers, but not to answer questions about it.
Perhaps they will be more inclined to answer once a larger number of Americans know about this terribly dark practice – and they know they are paying for it.