As the mainstream media has portrayed American youth as staunchly pro-abortion for so long, many are surprised to find that Gen Z and Millennials overwhelmingly lean pro-life rather than pro-abortion — and they are equally puzzled as to why this may be since young people are typically more liberal. A new article from BBC News interviewed several of our Pro-Life Generation activists and came up with this conclusion: young pro-lifers view the abortion issue as a social justice cause. Here’s more about the coverage and why it helps illustrate our big-tent movement:
(Click HERE to read our polling showing that the majority of Gen Z and Millennials want life-affirming laws that protect the preborn.)
The BBC News article, entitled “Anti-Abortion Gen Z-ers See Cause as Social Justice,” written by Rianna Croxford and Chelsea Bailey, highlights the “Post-Roe Generation” and begins by telling the story of one of Students for Life of America’s (SFLA) amazing Student Spokespersons, Noah Slayter. Slayter is a member of the SFLA group at The Catholic University of America and a former member of SFLA’s SCOTUS squad. The authors note in his introduction that over the course of his involvement with SFLA, Slayter has become “something of a fixture” at the Supreme Court — and they’re not wrong.
(Click HERE to read more on our blog about the SCOTUS Squad, the group of students that essentially lived at the Supreme Court.)
Slayter was back again on those steps the day that Roe v. Wade was reversed through the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, and he told BBC, “Even though it’s only the first step, we truly have achieved something. We truly levelled the playing field and made it so that everyone has a voice in this country.”
On how the youth of the pro-life movement considers abortion, he continued, “Every person in Gen Z has an understanding of Black Lives Matter, or climate change – all of these movements are for social justice and they’re focused on helping people. The pro-life movement is just another aspect of that.”
Croxford and Bailey also spoke with SFLA’s Texas Regional Coordinator Faith Elwonger who told them that it is wrong to link racial justice to abortion. As a Black woman herself who consistently fights against the social justice narrative that Black women particularly need abortion, she specifically reminded the reporters, “Abortion is the number one killer of the black community.”
Elwonger recently made this point in an op-ed at Fox News, co-written with Omarr Peters, and entitled “13th Amendment was Meant to Protect Black People, Not the Abortion Lobby.” She wrote,
“While abortion supporters love to emphasize that they “stand with Black women,” Faith acutely understands the degradation of this line of thought as a pro-life pregnant Black woman herself. Why are Black women being singled out as desperate for abortion and in danger if abortion is unavailable? The only answer is the implication that Black women are somehow weaker, dumber, or less resilient than women of any other skin color. This is yet another example of the abortion lobby’s self-righteous attempt to be the saviors of Black women in a bizarre effort to “help” us by insisting that we kill our children.”
Through interviews with Slayter and Elwonger, Croxford and Bailey recognized SFLA’s overall mission: to make abortion “not just illegal but unthinkable.” They wrote,
“As these young activists see it, outlawing abortion in the United States is not just about religion, but also about justice and part of a larger aim to extend equal rights to everyone – including the “pre-born,” which is how the movement describes a foetus [fetus].”
Their take on our movement and SFLA in particular is entirely correct — we are a movement made up of people who want to protect people, whether they are born or preborn – it’s that simple. Our students are widely diverse; males and females; Democrats, Republicans and independents; religions (or the lack thereof) of all flavors; the politically minded and the non-politically minded. Each of our students have their own personal stories about why they came to the pro-life movement, but they are all united by one passion: life is sacred, and we must protect it.
Abortion is the human rights issue of our day, and the Pro-Life Generation won’t stop until we have fully protected life in both law and service.
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