Hey, all! I’m the first to admit that I don’t really care about basketball. But this year, I found myself actually excited for the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament known as March Madness.
This year, roughly 7% of the women’s bracket and 10% of the men’s are made up of Catholic-affiliated universities. With 5.9% of all colleges in the U.S. being Catholic, not only are Catholic colleges over-represented in March Madness, but they are also over-represented in denying their students access to healthcare!
93% of non-Catholic US university campus health centers provide contraception to students. On the other hand, 66% of Catholic campuses do not provide contraception at all.
It’s not easy to constantly be suppressed by your university leadership. So, join Catholics for Choice in celebrating two of the organizations run by courageous pro-choice students on Catholic campuses represented in March Madness!
💜 At Villanova University, Philadelphia, PA, the student organization The Space has been fighting censorship from their university.
From cancelling events with Planned Parenthood to making it nearly impossible for the group to have a name that reflects their work in reproductive freedom, university leadership has no shame in putting down the very students whose education and campus experience they are meant to support.
🍀 Irish for Reproductive Health (I4RH) has been a lifeline for Notre Dame University students in Indiana, distributing contraception when their school won’t. They boldly stood up to the university, suing them for ignoring the immediate needs of their students and skirting the ACA’s birth control mandate by claiming religious objections.
Notre Dame University
Thank you to all the pro-choice and reproductive justice-based groups on Catholic campuses, stepping up for the well-being of their fellow students where Catholic institutions fail to. You are a blessing. 🫶
In community,
Taylor Githens, Senior Digital Engagement Specialist, Catholics for Choice, USA. E-mail: 18 March 2026, Web: cfc@cfc.catholicsforchoice.org
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Just a few weeks ago, a Tennessee woman reported a Catholic hospital cancelled her sterilization surgery, with the hospital’s Catholic Ethics Oversight Committee claiming a “duty to protect her sacred fertility.”
What’s worse, the woman cited Tennessee’s total abortion ban as one of the reasons she sought out the sterilization procedure.
Last year, Tennessee passed H.B. 1044, a law that shields doctors from liability for refusing care that “conflicts” with their religious beliefs. The bill doesn’t just guarantee individuals the right to refuse someone else’s healthcare: It also protects institutions.
In a doctor’s office, there should only be room for one person’s religious beliefs: the patient.
The case presents yet another example of the ways that everyone, from bishops to doctors, refuses to trust young women to make decisions about their bodies.
It is your body, your choice.
Not a bishop’s.
Not a politician’s.
Not a family member’s.
Not a friend’s.
And certainly not a group of strangers’ on an “ethics” committee of a Catholic hospital.
It’s never as simple as telling somebody, “Just don’t go to a Catholic hospital.”
In the U.S., 1 in 6 hospital beds is part of a Catholic health system, and 800,0000 patients rely on a Catholic facility as their only hospital within a one-hour drive.
Religious overreach in healthcare affects everyone, even if you are not Catholic.
Read our free guide, The Doctrine Will See You Now, to understand the way religious overreach impacts reproductive and gender-affirming care in Catholic health systems.
And if you suspect you’ve experienced healthcare denial in a Catholic health system – no matter what scale – submit your story to our tipline or share this link with somebody who has a tip of their own.
SOURCE: Catholics for Choice, USA. cfc@cfc.catholicsforchoice.org