The editor-in-chief of a University of Notre Dame student newspaper has issued a letter condemning the university’s appointment of abortion advocate Susan Ostermann to a leadership post, calling the decision “astonishing” and “a slap in the face to every woman” at the Catholic institution.
In a Feb. 5 Letter to the Editor, published in The Observer, Lucy Spence, editor-in-chief of The Irish Rover, criticized Notre Dame’s selection of Ostermann as director of the Liu Institute, arguing that the appointment contradicts the university’s Catholic identity and its stated commitment to supporting women.
“The recent appointment of abortion advocate Susan Ostermann to director of the Liu Institute is astonishing coming from a university dedicated to the mother of an unplanned pregnancy,” Spence wrote. “And the decision should be viewed as none other than a slap in the face to every woman here.”
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Spence wrote that Ostermann has “dedicated a significant portion of her professional talent and influence to the dissemination of articles vilifying the pro-life movement,” citing past writings in which Ostermann described carrying an unplanned child as “violence,” “sexual abuse,” and “trauma.”
Spence also criticized Ostermann’s past comments about crisis pregnancy centers, which Ostermann has characterized as “places of ‘propaganda’ existing to ‘provide false information to women who are lured to them believing they will receive legitimate medical care,’” according the letter to the editor.
Spence pointed to a 2021 controversy in which then-Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins denounced an article co-authored by Ostermann and two other faculty members titled “Lies about abortion have dictated our health policy.”
“Four years ago, Ostermann’s views were so abhorrent to the values of this University that former President Jenkins publicly rejected an article she wrote,” Spence said. “Now, Ostermann has been selected to lead one of our University’s institutes.”
Spence tied the appointment to comments made last year by Provost John McGreevy, who suggested the hiring of women and minorities would become a priority equal to that of hiring Catholics.
“Ostermann’s appointment, presumably an implementation of McGreevy’s plan, is doing nothing to aid women at Notre Dame,” Spence wrote. “It is doing the opposite, promoting the saddest lie ever told to them: that their children are disposable.”
Spence rejected the idea that abortion empowers women, writing that “women are tired of being told that their strength lies in the rejection of love.”
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“No, unplanned pregnancies do not ‘destroy lives,’” she wrote. “No, a child born of rape is not a ‘form of violence.’ In its appointment and promotion of Ostermann, Notre Dame has become complicit in feeding that great lie to its female students.”
“Until it begins to defend the sanctity of all life — mother and baby alike — in all of its actions,” Spence concluded, “Notre Dame can never hope to fulfill the singular duty it bears to its female students as Our Lady’s University.”