A liberal New York university is under fire after a student-run campus garden began promoting plants historically used to induce abortions.
Purchase College, a public university in southeastern New York, is home to a “Reproductive Justice Garden” that features herbs known for their abortifacient properties. While organizers describe the garden as educational, its social media posts appear to encourage students to harvest these plants, raising concerns about the message being sent to young women facing an unexpected pregnancy.
A September 2024 post from the garden’s Instagram account highlights an herb, stating that enslaved black women would use the “flower as an abortifacient” and that “by drinking the seeds, leaves, or flowers of the plant in tea-form, enslaved women could induce a miscarriage.”
Another post offers instructions on how students can harvest and “collect [plants] from the garden.”
A map of the garden also labels a large section for “abortifacient” plants. Other sections are dedicated to “pregnancy/gestation,” “mental health,” and “menstruation.”
No matter how the garden is described, encouraging students to collect plants associated with killing babies in the womb is terrible. College can already be an overwhelming time, especially for women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant. Instead of helping scared women, projects like this make abortion seem like the obvious answer.
Herbal abortions are far from harmless. Not only can they lead to a dead child, but a mother as well. These plants can vary greatly in strength, making it impossible to know a safe dose. They can lead to severe bleeding, infection, poisoning, or incomplete abortions that require emergency medical care.
While the garden appears to be run by a student club, college interns have allegedly helped maintain it, according to an October 2024 Instagram post. Another post says it has also received donations from the Purchase Student Government Association, which is funded through mandatory student fees.
The garden’s Instagram also directs visitors to a website called “How to Perform an Abortion,” which describes itself as “a collaborative, research-focused art project.” It was created by Maureen Connor, an artist and professor emeritus at Queens College in New York.
According to the website, Connor’s project aims to demystify and destigmatize “reproductive care” through abortion gardens, monuments, workshops, and public presentations. Other abortion gardens connected to the project include one at Barnard College in New York City.
The website says the purpose of these gardens is “both as symbol and through function … women need knowledge about existing methods and the means to access them.”
It also explains that the garden “explores the history of reproductive justice through plants” and “includes herbs that have been used over thousands of years for fertility, contraception, and abortion.”
According to the website, the gardens are “comprised of ten plants with abortifacient potential.”
The site also includes educational material about historical abortion methods and states that “no power structure can ultimately stop women from preventing or ending an unwanted pregnancy.”
As Christians, we know babies deserve the chance to live. Women facing unexpected pregnancies need hope, support, and people willing to walk beside them, not encouragement to take dangerous risks in isolation.
Every mother and every child is made in the image of God, and both are worthy of love, protection, and care.