A group called the Youth Abortion Support Collective hosted a two-day "abortion support doula" training at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in November 2025, openly recruiting teenagers as young as 14 to learn how to guide others through abortions and train their peers to do the same.
According to Fox News, the training, scheduled for November 15 and 16, ran from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days on the campus of a public university. The target audience: "young people ages 14–24." Not college students. Not adults making informed decisions about volunteer work. Fourteen-year-olds.
What the Training Promised
The event invite laid out the scope plainly:
"This training is for young people ages 14–24 and will provide an introduction to the tools, resources, and skills for abortion support work. We welcome anyone who is interested in becoming an abortion doula, companion, and/or support person."
The invite went further, describing how the training would "center youth-led abortion support efforts, specifically for high school and college students" while also discussing "how to offer support as community members and continue advocacy after leaving campus." This isn't a one-off educational seminar. It's a pipeline. High schoolers learn the trade, carry it to college, then spread it into the broader community.
The invite defined an abortion doula as "anyone who can physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually hold space for someone before, during, and/or after abortion." That's a lot of spiritual language for an organization that would bristle at a crisis pregnancy center offering prayer.
The Youth Abortion Support Collective is run by Advocates for Youth, which also advertises a separate six-week Abortion Support Training resource. The November event at UNC Charlotte was promoted on Instagram by Advocates for Youth Mid-Atlantic in an October 22, 2025, post: "We are excited to announce our upcoming in-person Abortion Support Training at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte! If you are between 14-24 and in the Charlotte Area come learn about being an abortion doula and meet other folks in your region!"
The enthusiasm is notable. No disclaimers about parental consent. No mention of age-appropriate boundaries. Just an open call for anyone who clears the 14-year-old bar.
The University's Response
UNC Charlotte, for its part, retreated to the standard bureaucratic crouch. A spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the event was organized by a registered student organization and that the university serves as "a marketplace of ideas."
"The University is a marketplace of ideas, and as a public institution, we provide space on our campus for our students and student organizations to hold a wide range of events and discussions consistent with University and UNC System policies and state and federal law."
The spokesperson added that the university "remains neutral on the diverse social and political points of view expressed by the more than 450 registered student organizations on our campus" and that student group events "do not represent the views of the University."
Neutrality. The favorite hiding spot of institutions that know they're hosting something indefensible but don't want to own it.
The spokesperson noted that "all groups holding events must follow applicable policies, including those related to minors and safety." Which raises the question nobody at UNC Charlotte seems eager to answer: what exactly are those policies regarding minors, and did anyone verify compliance before allowing a group to recruit 14-year-olds into abortion support work on a university campus?
The Real Issue Isn't a Campus Event
An activist organization used a public university's facilities to train children to participate in the abortion process. The training was not focused on reproductive biology or academic debate, but on becoming active participants in helping people obtain abortions and recruiting more young people into the work.
The program allowed 14-year-olds, who cannot vote, sign contracts, or purchase alcohol, to be trained as abortion doulas at a public university. The training aimed to create a self-replicating network, teaching attendees to "continue advocacy after leaving campus," while the university claimed neutrality despite providing the venue.
The left has spent years insisting that parental involvement laws around abortion are oppressive. That teenagers are mature enough to make life-altering medical decisions without a parent in the room. This training is the logical extension of that philosophy: if a teen is old enough to have an abortion without parental consent, surely she's old enough to be trained to help facilitate one for someone else.
Follow the thread further. These are not medical professionals. The definition offered in the invite requires no credentials, no certification, and no training beyond what this weekend workshop provides. Just the willingness to "hold space." That phrase does a remarkable amount of heavy lifting for what amounts to coaching minors into the emotional and logistical machinery of abortion access.
A Pattern, Not an Anomaly
Organizations like Advocates for Youth have operated in this space for years, steadily lowering the age floor for abortion activism while dressing it up in the language of empowerment and peer support. The six-week training resource they advertise separately suggests this is not a casual side project. It's infrastructure.
And UNC Charlotte's response is the template every public university uses when caught hosting something controversial from the left. Marketplace of ideas. Student organizations. Neutrality. It's the same institution that would launch a full-scale review if a student group invited a speaker who questioned gender ideology. Neutrality, it turns out, has a direction.
The question for North Carolina taxpayers and parents is straightforward. A public university opened its doors so that an activist group could train its children to support abortions and recruit others into the cause. The university insists it bears no responsibility for the content. The organizers insist 14 is old enough.
Nobody asked the parents.
