Students at DePaul University in Chicago have created a covert system for distributing contraceptives in defiance of a ban imposed by the Catholic university.
The scheme, called “the womb service,” emerged after the university revoked recognition of its Planned Parenthood Generation Action chapter earlier this year.
DePaul, the largest Catholic university in the United States by enrolment, prohibits the distribution of any form of birth control on campus. Administrators said the decision to shut down the group was linked to its ties with Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion provider, and stressed that the university reserves the right to restrict health-related supplies it considers contrary to its mission and values.
Since then, students have continued their activities off campus, organising deliveries of condoms and emergency contraception through coded messages and discreet drop-offs.
They say demand has been consistent, with weekly orders numbering in the dozens. Some members also hold informal educational sessions for peers on reproductive health, which they argue is otherwise poorly addressed within the university environment.
The group’s leader, economics student Maya Roman, said she was motivated by the lack of resources available to students and by the limited knowledge of sexual health among many of her contemporaries.
Roman, whose mother is a nurse, said she wanted to provide practical support where she perceived a gap. The initiative has since re-registered under a new name, Students United for Reproductive Justice, and intends to continue its activities throughout the academic year.
Similar efforts exist at other Catholic universities. At Loyola University in Chicago, students distribute contraceptives off campus under the banner of Students for Reproductive Justice, while at the University of Notre Dame, activists established Irish 4 Reproductive Health in 2017 after the university declined to provide birth control coverage to its community.
The Catholic Church’s prohibition of artificial contraception was most firmly restated in Humanae Vitae, the encyclical issued by Pope Paul VI in 1968. The document reaffirmed the Church’s teaching that every marital act must remain open to life and rejected the use of artificial means of birth control. Its release provoked unprecedented dissent, particularly in the United States, where large numbers of theologians, priests, and lay Catholics openly resisted its conclusions.
While Paul VI had been seen as a reforming pontiff for his role in guiding the Second Vatican Council, his decision to uphold traditional teaching on contraception brought intense criticism, with some episcopal conferences abroad adopting a more permissive tone. Yet despite the widespread pushback, the encyclical became a defining statement of modern papal teaching, and it continues to shape the policies of Catholic universities and institutions today.
Photo credit: Richie D. - originally posted to Flickr as Byrne Hall with the Vincentian Rectory, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4772928
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