Editor's Note: This article is part of a special series celebrating Catholic universities and colleges and their outreach to students in a post-Roe world. Find more stories here.

A straight-A college student sees her future plans turned upside down when she receives an unexpected test result: She’s pregnant. …

Abortion advocates have used scenarios like this one to manipulate women into believing that taking the life of an innocent unborn child is the only sensible course of action.

That’s simply not true, as countless mothers who choose life for their babies despite facing far steeper obstacles than a heavy college course load can readily attest. But there’s a reason why that pro-abortion messaging works (and why abortion providers like Planned Parenthood make a point to locate their facilities conveniently close to college campuses): fear.

Many young women who find themselves in these circumstances understandably struggle with a fear of abandonment. Does this mean I’ll have to abandon my career goals? Will my parents, my friends, the father of my child all abandon me? And what about my college and professors? Will they abandon me, too?

In the past, because of the stigma associated with unwed motherhood, that fear wasn’t unfounded at many colleges, including Catholic ones. But, thankfully, that’s changing for the better, as the Register’s Lauretta Brown discovered recently when she visited the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Earlier this year, the faithfully Catholic liberal arts college officially launched a truly pro-life initiative called the St. Teresa of Calcutta Community for Mothers. Funded by a generous anonymous couple, the program provides young moms and expectant mothers free room and board — and free childcare — while they complete their studies.

If you believe their glossy brochures and warm-and-fuzzy promotional videos, every college in America provides a welcoming, nurturing environment where students receive the support they need to pursue their dreams. The University of Mary is one school that truly delivers on that promise, “walking the walk” of its pro-life ethos, as is only befitting for a college dedicated to the Blessed Mother.

As University of Mary president Msgr. James Patrick Shea told the Register, it’s more important than ever in the aftermath of last year’s historic yet deeply divisive Dobbs decision that pro-lifers give a “strong and beautiful” witness to their respect for all human life. 

“If I’m going to advocate for the protection of unborn lives,” Msgr. Shea explained, “that means that I’m going to do everything that I can to support those lives once they’re born and the women who are generous enough to bring those lives into the fullness of light.”

The good news is that the Community for Mothers at the Benedictine university is part of a growing trend among Catholic colleges to go the extra mile to support young moms and mothers-to-be to move past their fears and embrace God’s gift of new life — and the countless other gifts he offers us when we step out in faith at difficult moments in our lives. Together with similar initiatives at Belmont Abbey College, Ave Maria University and The Catholic University of America, the University of Mary is setting an example that more Catholic and secular schools ought to follow.

Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates prey on the fears of young women in unplanned pregnancies, but these works of mercy send a much-needed counter-message, affirming God’s words in Jeremiah 29:11: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”