The pro-life organization Students for Life of America held a demonstration on Monday, Nov. 11. The organization calls for the abolishment of abortion and the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
The demonstration consisted of the organization’s central campus formation coordinator Megan Roos standing near Sunwatcher Plaza with an informational poster board as well as crosses and posters scattered across the lawn. Roos is not an MSU student but said Students for Life is working on starting a student organization on campus.
The posters depicted unborn fetuses with inflammatory rhetoric. One poster said Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organization, “puts profits over people,” another said “Planned Parenthood kills.”
“The signs, unfortunately, they capture people’s attention… and what my hope is that they start conversations,” Roos said.
The signs successfully caught student attention, bringing a crowd around Roos shortly after she arrived.
Roos, however, aligned with the signs behind her when talking to students.
“Again, putting profits over people, they [Planned Parenthood] have abortion quotas that they have to meet,” Roos said.
Planned Parenthood does not have abortion quotas.
Planned Parenthood is funded through federally funded grants and Medicaid reimbursements, as well as donations. In 2023, Planned Parenthood reported it received 34% of its funding from government health services reimbursements and grants, totaling about $700 million.
“$700 million of our taxpayer funding are going to Planned Parenthood, and that’s against the consciousness of a lot of Americans. And that’s concerning, and I would really just love to see that funding moved away from Planned Parenthood and toward federally qualified healthcare centers,” Roos said.
The Hyde Amendment passed in 1977 and banned the use of federal funding for abortion, except to save a mother. The Amendment has to be renewed every year.
“Technically, our taxpayer dollars, when they go to Planned Parenthood, are going to abortion… if we give money to an institution, Planned Parenthood can put it toward marketing, they can put it toward hiring staff for the front desk. But what that’s really doing is helping them get more abortions. Abortion is at least 90% of what Planned Parenthood does,” Roos said.
By using non-federally provided funding, Planned Parenthood avoids violating the Hyde Amendment. It is audited annually to ensure compliance.
Between 2015 and 2019, 7.5% of Planned Parenthood patients accessed abortion care, according to a fact sheet by the organization. A 2013 breakdown of services reported that 3% of all services offered relate to abortion.
Multiple students spoke to Roos at the demonstration, hearing her points and either arguing their own or showing support.
One such student was computer science freshman Austin Williams, who spoke with Roos soon after she set up her demonstration.
“Seeing an event like this, I, even though my opinions on it might personally differ, I can definitely see how somebody would come to the conclusion of Planned Parenthood being a terrible, terrible thing,” Williams said.”But it also does provoke the thought of ‘What about all of the situations where these things could have happened and what sort of resources could have been put towards preventing a situation like this, to begin with.'”
“Let me tell you, the reactions, as they have been, have not been what I expected. I have seen so many pro-choice people being so open and willing to have these conversations. And that, I think, is the best reaction I’ve ever seen, and I’m really grateful for that,” Roos said. “You can see these people here being willing to engage in these hard conversations even though they really disagree with each other.”
