by Dr. John Bruchalski and Dominique Monlezun

We recently completed a two-week national bioethics tour through 23 medical schools and universities with Medical Students for Life of America, during which we hoped to let some of America’s top medical students know that they are not alone in facing discrimination based on their pro-life beliefs. Nearly 1,000 medical students from both sides of this debate joined us to engage this question, from Harvard Medical School to Mayo, from the University of Pittsburgh to the University of Virginia. Some of the stories we heard may startle you.

Take “Christine,” who said that none of her professors talk about relationships in medicine, only the ideology of just performing the procedure. We also learned of “Ryan,” who was punished by his own mentor. He was the only one among his peers to suggest adoption for a woman in a troubled pregnancy; everyone else recommended abortion as the first and only option. A memo by his professor later surfaced in which he declared that “Ryan” would be a future abortion-clinic bomber. This memo was never sent to Ryan but went straight into his student file, the hub of school performance evaluation that becomes critical when students apply to residency programs. He was blacklisted for believing women deserve options.

Then there’s “Mary,” who said she felt intellectually assaulted during her OB/GYN rotation in her school’s training hospital. She recalls being inundated with professor instructions to promote abortions continually for pregnant patients, never mind her personal beliefs about it. (more…)

Planned Parenthood, Abortion Enabled My Abuse; Now I’m Pro-Life

As the CR vote comes to a climax again next week, I wanted to share an incredible story with the LifeNews blog readers.  We’ve seen the Live Action undercover videos of Planned Parenthood’s protection of racists, rapists and sex traffickers but their movies come to life when SFLA directly works with Planned Parenthood’s victims.

Melissa Pereira, a pro-life student leader at Caldwell College in New Jersey, sent me her story last week after winning the “Tell Congress” video contest and her interview with the National Pro-Life Youth Podcast. It is so powerful, I want to share it with you. As you read it, remember that this is not a single case, but stories like this are generated everyday that Planned Parenthood is open.

We must de-fund this abortion Goliath, and reach out to women who are victims of the abortion industry.

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Why? Why me? Why did I have to learn at an extraordinarily young age how to make 911 calls? Why did I have to experience the trauma of threats? Why the screaming, the psychological manipulation, the constant fear as if my life were a big, ugly mine field? What did I do to deserve this? Looking at my peers, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why did I have to be born with this kind of life?”
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Yesterday, LifeSiteNews.com posted this article on Students for Life of America and Kristan Hawkins SFLA’s Executive Director. Read the original post here.

Kristan Hawkins, Executive Director of Students for Life of America

In 1996 a sobering Gallup Poll was released that confirmed what many pro-life activists already suspected, but nevertheless hoped wasn’t true: while 47% of women said they were pro-life when they entered college, by graduation, a whopping 73% said they were now pro-choice.

Frighteningly, the pro-life movement was losing 26% of all female students who went through a university program. Clearly, if the movement had any hope of survival in the long run, more needed to be done to reach out to students.

At that time there already existed a group whose mission was to create a pro-life presence on campuses – American Collegians for Life. But without a full-time staff, and without a significant source of funding, there was only so much that the Collegians for Life, which was entirely student-run, could do.

In 2006, all of that changed. In that year American Collegians for Life received a sizable start-up grant, changed its name to Students for Life of America (SFLA), hired a professional staff, opened its first national headquarters in Arlington, VA, and launched its historic Pro-Life Field Program.

Since then, Students for Life has gone on to become one of the most active, and most successful, pro-life organizations in the country.

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