At least four academic entities operating under the auspices of the University of Texas at Austin are engaged in pro-abortion activities.
A preliminary investigation has uncovered a well-known abortion advocate running a “fund” at the law school and two academic subdivisions that have released overtly pro-abortion academic research. A group that submitted an amicus brief on behalf of the defendants in the U.S. Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, is also active on campus.
Housed at the UT-Austin Law School’s Rapaport Center is the Sissy Farenthold Reproductive Justice Defense Project. The project acts “as a hub for state, national, and international academic research and advocacy” for a variety of pro-abortion causes.
The Rapaport Center is named after former UT Regent Chair Bernard Rapaport and his wife Audre, who were prominent abortion advocates in the 1970s and 1980s. The Planned Parenthood in Waco was infamously named after Mrs. Rapaport. Sissy Farenthold was a pro-abortion state representative in the early 1970s.
The project director is Blake Rocap. His UT-Austin biography lists him as the “current legal director of Jane’s Due Process,” a group that exploits loopholes in state law to promote abortion for minors. Rocap has also served as the legislative council for AVOW (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice Texas), an explicitly pro-abortion advocacy organization.
The Population Research Center (PRC), which “supports research that moves well beyond the bounds of traditional demography to the cutting edge of population research,” is the umbrella organization for the remainder of this work. The PRC is a department within the College of Liberal Arts and has a variety of other affiliations on campus.
In 2023, the PRC published an article that argued that the drug misoprostol “has a high rate of effectiveness and a low rate of serious adverse events” when used to induce abortions.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, abortion advocates promoted the use of misoprostol. However, Dr. Ingrid Skop wrote that evidence worldwide shows that “misoprostol alone is a poor abortifacient and very likely to cause injury to women.” Even abortion advocate Ushma Upadhyay warned that those who use the drug for abortion purposes must “understand how long they’ll be bleeding after they take” it.
Underneath the PRC is the Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP), which claims to “evaluate the impact of legislation and policies in Texas related to contraception and abortion.”
In 2022, a group of scholars associated with TxPEP published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in which they argued that pro-life laws passed by Texas forebode a “dangerous future.” In 2016, U.S. Supreme Court Justices cited TxPEP research in the Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstadt opinion, which invalidated certain provisions in previously passed pro-life laws.
The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s first wife and run by his daughter, has funded TxPEP.
Also operating on campus is the “Self-Managed Abortion Needs Assessment project,” or Project SANA, which claims to “study the safety, effectiveness, and accessibility of self-managed medication abortion.” While the precise relationship between Project SANA and the PRC is unclear, its principal investigator, Professor Abigail Aiken, is also a faculty scholar at the PRC.
In 2021, Project SANA submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the respondents in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Project SANA’s brief claimed abortion is “a very safe, common medical procedure, and part of the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare” and urged justices to leave the pre-Dobbs status quo in place.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation donated $100,000 to both the Farenthold Reproductive Justice Defense Project and Project SANA in 2023.
The University of Texas at Austin falls under the jurisdiction of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, which is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate.
The UT Board of Regents and the UT-Austin president’s office did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
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