Every year, Students for Life (SFLA) speaking tours stop at dozens of campuses across the country to spread our message. We’re able to do that because of the First Amendment, which protects our right to free speech.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that speech is “free.” Instead, thanks to the Left’s culture of violence, SFLA must spend hundreds of thousands per year on security measures to protect our speakers from being injured or even killed for simply daring to speak the truth.

In a Monday op-ed for RealClearPolitics, SFLA President Kristan Hawkins wrote, “As someone who travels the country both speaking and setting up events on college and university campuses, I can tell you that ‘free speech’ isn’t free.”

Hawkins continued,

Even before the tragedy that ended my dear friend [Charlie Kirk]’s life, security costs for our Students for Life events had risen about 25%, putting the average cost of a campus event at $4,000….

Our team has endured bomb threats, vandalizations, stolen and damaged property, physical attacks, urine throwing, stalking, student doxxing, and general cruelty, all of which can raise the emotional cost of public speech. Threats of rape and murder are common, and we keep a file, just in case.

Speech is “not free,” concluded Hawkins. “And without better support, many will be priced out of the public arena.”

Read the full op-ed HERE.