As a proud graduate of the University of Notre Dame and president of the March for Life, I’m grateful for the way my alma mater formed both my intellect and my conscience. Notre Dame taught me that truth matters, that human dignity is not negotiable and that where we see an injustice being done, we should work to right it. It is in the spirit of what I learned at Notre Dame that I must address an ongoing controversy at the University.
I share the many serious concerns raised about Notre Dame’s recent decision to promote professor Susan Ostermann to a leadership role. Others have compellingly articulated concerns about what this means for the University’s Catholic character. I will respond specifically to professor Ostermann’s repeated claims about pregnancy resource centers, which cannot be permitted to stand — especially with the name of Our Lady’s University attached to them. Her allegations are inflammatory, unsupported and deeply irresponsible.
In a May 2024 Chicago Tribune commentary, professor Ostermann and her co-authors described pregnancy resource centers as “anti-abortion rights propaganda sites” that “provide false information to women who are lured to them believing they will receive legitimate medical care.” In an earlier piece, she asserted that PRCs are “specifically designed to deceive pregnant people,” calling their work “coercive.”
These are serious claims. They are also wrong.
Across the United States, more than 2,700 PRCs provide essential care to women. Most are nonprofit organizations staffed by a combination of licensed medical professionals and trained volunteers. According to data released in 2025 by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, PRCs nationwide provided more than $350 million in free medical services, material assistance and support to over one million clients in a single year. That included millions of diapers, baby formula and clothing items, and hundreds of thousands of free ultrasounds, STI testing, parenting classes, housing referrals and ongoing case management.
These services are offered at no cost to women, regardless of their income, background or ultimate decision. They are not billed to Medicaid or private insurance. These organizations are not profit-making enterprises. They are a community response to women facing unexpected or difficult pregnancies. And they exist precisely because many women want practical support in carrying a pregnancy to term.
To dismiss these institutions that serve women in need as “propaganda sites” is not only inaccurate; it is demeaning to the women who seek them out.
It is also dangerous.
In the months following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, more than 100 pregnancy resource centers and pro-life organizations were attacked. In some cases, facilities were burned to the ground.
Words matter. When respected academics repeatedly characterize PRCs as fraudulent, coercive and harmful, it feeds a narrative that these organizations are illegitimate and even deserving of hostility. No one is responsible for the criminal actions of others. But people who wade into the public square bear responsibility for the climate they help create.
I have visited PRCs across our nation. I have seen firsthand the essential care they provide. I have met women whose lives have been transformed by the services and support they received at PRCs. In addition to providing practical, tangible support, PRCs offer a vital but less visible service: restoring women’s dignity and confidence by treating them with respect and affirming their capacity to be mothers.
As an alumna, I expect my beloved university to be a place that lives up to the values it taught me: where truth matters; where the dignity of every human person, whether born or preborn, is defended not only in theory, but in practice; and where wrongs are righted — even when that means making hard decisions.
PRCs are not the caricature professor Ostermann describes. They are an expression of civil society at its best, and, more than any other type of organization, they prepare pregnant women to make a free and unfettered choice. Not every woman who walks into a PRC ultimately chooses to carry her pregnancy to term. But every single one is treated with dignity and respect.
Notre Dame should not reward reckless rhetoric with a promotion. PRCs and the countless women who have been helped by them deserve better than the baseless smears promulgated by professor Ostermann.
Jennie Bradley Lichter
Class of 2004
President of the March for Life
Feb. 25
