At just 19, Brianna Moore faces trial for the aggravated manslaughter of her newborn daughter—a tragedy born from a worldview, cultivated on too many campuses, that strips life of its worth.
Last October, in the privacy of her dorm bathroom, Moore delivered a baby girl. Minutes later, she suffocated the child, wrapped her in a towel, and left her in a trash can. Investigators later uncovered a disturbing text exchange between Moore and a man who was not the father of her child. “Hey man, sometimes you need a plan C,” Moore allegedly wrote. The man responded, “Plan A was condoms. Plan B was the pill. Plan C was to kill [the] kid.” Moore allegedly replied, “Plan C is my favorite.” The man’s relationship to Moore is unclear, and Moore’s attorney says that the messages were taken out of context and did not know she was pregnant until the morning she gave birth.
Moore is pleading not guilty, but the case reflects a broader cultural current on college campuses—one marked by contempt for the unborn and a rejection of principled sexual ethics.
The landmark 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision, which established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, resulted in skyrocketing abortion rates, and abortion is now the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States today—rates have shot up after the Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Today, many universities promote an ideology that treats life as disposable, and students absorb the message. It’s why pro-life speakers like Charlie Kirk and Kristen Mercer-Hawkins are often met with outrage on campus—because for a growing share of students, defending life is not a moral conviction; it’s a provocation.
This mindset didn’t emerge overnight. For decades, colleges have promoted a view of sex detached from responsibility, intimacy, and permanence. In their 2013 report What Does Bowdoin Teach?, Peter Wood and Michael Toscano noted that the college’s sexual policies revolve almost entirely around consent, treating sexual activity as a transactional act rather than connecting it to virtue, responsibility, or emotional depth.
One telling example came in 2009, when Bowdoin added Speak About It—a student-written play on undergraduate sexual practices—to new student orientation. Attendance was mandatory. The play depicts couples, both gay and straight, narrating their thoughts as they engage in sexual activity. While it includes a brief reminder that students can decline sex, the overall tone celebrates those who do not.
In the 2011 performance, the closing message summed up the prevailing attitude:
Whatever you decide you want your relationship with sex to be about, there are opportunities out there. Whether you want to have sex or you don’t, you’re looking for love or a one-night stand, you’re gay or straight or somewhere in between, it’s all possible. And whatever happens, remember to be safe, get consent, and watch out for your friends.
But the perversion of sexual ethics has only gotten worse in recent years.
Far from just vague definitions about sexual consent, today’s students—away from home for the first time—are immersed in messaging that elevates sexual freedom as the highest good, while dismissing its most natural consequence: children. In this culture, pregnancy is treated not as a life to be welcomed, but as a problem to be eliminated.
Under the banner of “sexual education,” many universities now sponsor courses and events that resemble adult entertainment more than academia. At Northwestern University last fall, students could enroll in Beyond Porn: Sexuality, Health and Pleasure. The University of Wisconsin allocated over $100,000 to a student group called Sex Out Loud, which distributes “sex toys, contraceptives, and sexual presentations.” At the University of Connecticut, a “rope bondage” workshop was offered in February, while Boston University hosted a Sex in the Dark event in April featuring a self-described “pleasure guide.”
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Colleges don’t just celebrate sex; they make it as easy and accessible as possible. A government study found that 12 of 15 universities surveyed offer free contraceptives, with little indication that abstinence is even discussed as an option. At one school, a university-funded group reportedly roamed the campus tossing handfuls of condoms to passing students.
And when contraception fails, abortion is presented as both a pragmatic and morally sound solution.
Many universities maintain strong ties to the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, which boasts over 350 Generation Action clubs on campuses nationwide. Countless others steer students toward local abortion clinics rather than pregnancy resource centers. A newer phenomenon, Plan B vending machines, as well as campuses mandating abortion pill access for students, further compound the fact that colleges and universities are making the murder of unborn children as convenient as grabbing a soda or a Snickers bar.
For decades, mainstream universities have produced students steeped in hedonism and devoid of personal responsibility. Before the Progressive era, sexual behavior was tempered by religious and moral frameworks, which many universities—originating as seminaries—upheld through abstinence measures and moral guidance. By the mid-20th century, however, universities increasingly embraced a culture rooted in moral relativism and nihilism. When life is stripped of its sacredness and students are taught to pursue sex as mere recreation, human life itself is devalued. If students continue to be conditioned to revile life, cases like Brianna Moore’s will cease to shock us and instead become the norm.
Among their responsibilities, colleges and universities should help cultivate virtuous, responsible citizens. Education should promote character, moral discernment, and meaningful contribution to society—not subsidize a culture of casual sex and easy access to abortion.
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