Nominate Your Group for SFLA’s Group of the Year Awards!

Posted on December 16, 2016 by Kristan Hawkins

Every year, Students for Life of America is honored to award prizes to student groups and leaders at our National Conferences! These cash prizes can help further the outreach efforts and the effectiveness of these groups at their schools.

To award these prizes to deserving students and groups, we need you to nominate the groups and leaders you think deserve recognition – you can even nominate your own group! Listed below are the categories, prize amounts, and nomination forms for each award. Winning groups must be present at the SFLA West or East Coast National Conference to receive the award.

Applications are due no later than January 13, 2017. Email us (link to lstover@studentsforlife.org) your applications today!

College Group Awards

2017 College Group of the Year

$1,000 Prize

This award will recognize the all-around excellence of one college pro-life student group. The SFLA College Group of the Year will demonstrate success in areas of campus activism, recruitment, and community involvement.

Follow this link to apply: 2017 College Group of the Year Award Application

2017 New College Group of the Year

$500 Prize

This award will recognize an outstanding new pro-life college group that was formed between January 2016 and December 2016. The New College Group of the Year Award will be given to a group that has shown success in recruiting members and raising awareness about abortion on campus.

Follow this link to apply: 2017 New College Group of the Year Award Application

2017 Pregnant on Campus Group of the Year

Prize: $250 (in gift cards)

The Pregnant on Campus Group of the Year Award will recognize the achievements of two Students for Life college groups that have excelled in promoting pregnant and parenting resources. (One award will be given to an East Coast group; the other award will be given to an West Coast group.)

The SFLA Pregnant on Campus Groups of the Year should demonstrate success in pregnant and parenting advocacy and outreach on their college campus. This group should show significant efforts to change their campus to embrace practices and policies that protect and assist pregnant and parenting students.

Follow this link to apply: 2017 PonC Group of the Year Award

High School Group Awards

2017 High School Group of Year

$1,000 Prize

This award will recognize the all-around excellence of one high school pro-life student group. The SFLA High School Group of the Year will demonstrate success in activism, recruitment, and community involvement.

Follow this link to apply: 2017 High School Group of the Year Award Application

2017 New High School Group of the Year

$500 Prize

The New High School Group of the Year will be given to the student pro-life group who has best developed and organized an innovative way to share the pro-life message at their high schools or in their homeschool communities.

Follow this link to apply: 2017 New High School Group of the Year Award Application

Announcing the 2015 Conference Speakers!

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Kristan Hawkins

Every year the Students for Life of America National Conferences get better and better. Since we added a West Coast National Conference, students have two chances to take advantage of our awesome speakers and workshops.

Not registered? Go HERE!

The East and West Coast National Conferences schedules mirror each other so attendees who aren’t able to attend one or the other will still get everything they need to go back to their campuses as pro-life warriors and abolish abortion.

Check out some of the great speakers students will hear from at our conferences:

Professor Robbie George
Defender of Life Award Winner

“To stand up for the sanctity of human life at all stages and in all conditions, while also reaching out in love to provide material and spiritual support to pregnant women in need, is to be both a “sign of contradiction” and a “witness to hope” in a culture that is desperately in need of such signs and witnesses.”

Abby Johnson
And Then There Were None

David Bereit
40 Days for Life

Josh Brahm
Equal Rights Institute

Peggy Hartshorn
Heartbeat International and Defender of Life Award Winner

“I am excited to be in the midst of the most pro-life generation since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973! Your “light” is shining brightly and providing the hope needed not only for those making a life or death decision but also for those of us who have been ‘fighting the good fight’ for a long while!”

Jason Jones
Movie to Movement

Check out the full schedule here.

We are looking forward to seeing you in January!

We Care

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Kristan Hawkins

Sexual assault is unfortunately prevalent in today’s culture. The National Institute of Justice reports that three percent of all college-age women are victims of completed or attempted rape, which translates to about 300 women on a campus of 10,000 female students. And nearly 80 percent of female victims of completed rape experienced the crime before the age of 25.

If sexual assault is as common as these statistics point out, how can we not talk about abortion in cases of rape? It is estimated that pregnancy occurs in five percent of rapes. These women are then faced with the heart wrenching choice of parenting their child or having an abortion.

Pro-lifers, especially those in the public eye, need to know how to answer the “what about rape?” question. This week, Students for Life of America is launching our national We Care Tour visiting 14 college campuses in eight states covering 5,580 miles this fall, addressing this very question, not shirking from it.

The fear of becoming the next Todd Akin is at the forefront of the minds of many good, pro-life candidates who have no idea how to answer that question when it comes to abortion. Admittedly, it’s a tough one, especially during election season where “rape” has been called “the four-letter word.”

By refusing to answer the question or giving a cringe-worthy response, the credibility of the pro-life movement is put in jeopardy because we leave doubts in the minds of so many Americans who have mixed emotions on the question, believing abortion is wrong but not wanting to further hurt a rape survivor.

However, it’s a question that must be answered because so much is at stake: the health and well-being of the mother and the life of the baby, who through no fault of his or her own now exists. While crisis pregnancies in cases of rape are indeed a very tiny percentage of all abortions committed, they still involve the taking of a life and a lifetime of complications, mentally and possibly physically, for rape survivors.

During our tour, we will have the very real and honest conversations that need to be had; pass out rape whistles, sexual consent cards, and hotline numbers; and tell the stories of those women who conceived because of rape.

The conversations will be hard, especially given the violent and personal nature of rape and sexual assault. The pro-life movement absolutely has to be compassionate and understanding of what these women have been through and continue to suffer. But abortion is not the answer to lessening that suffering.

While the intention may be to ease her suffering, abortion, even in the case of rape, is a great injustice to the second victim, the baby, because he or she did not choose to be placed in this situation, either. Ultimately, we will ask the question: If both victims of this tragic situation can walk away with their lives intact, isn’t that the best option?

The Elliot Institute surveyed 192 women who conceived during a rape or incest. Of those victims, 70 percent carried the baby to term and either raised the child or made an adoption plan, 29 percent had an abortion, and 1.5 percent had a miscarriage.

43 percent of these women said they felt pressured to abort from family or health workers.
78 percent of those who aborted had regrets and said that abortion was the wrong solution.
None of the women who gave birth said they regretted their decision.

Talking about the “what about rape?” question demands generous compassion and empathy. Sexual assault is an incredibly violent crime that no one should ever have to face. The damage done to the victims are extensive – mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually – but adding an abortion to that crime is adding another, equally innocent, victim. The pro-life movement needs to find a way to deliver that message with care and love.

— We Care Tour Stops —

University in New York, Buffalo
Boston University
Michigan State University
Oakland University
University of Michigan-Flint
University of Kentucky
Western Kentucky University
University of Memphis
Arizona State University
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
University of California, Riverside
University of Northern Colorado
Colorado State University, Pueblo
University of New Mexico

Planned Parenthood Supporter: “Abort away as far as I am concerned”

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Kristan Hawkins

Students for Life of America, the nation’s largest pro-life youth organization, took their ground-breaking Planned Parenthood Project to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville yesterday and met some resistance – check out the video below to hear an avid Planned Parenthood defender call the abortion giant a “noble and just organization” all the awhile advocating to “Abort away as far as I am concerned.”

The Planned Parenthood Project was developed by Students for Life after the organization’s own polling in 2012 found that 59% of 18-24 year olds didn’t know Planned Parenthood provided abortions. In addition, Students for Life’s internal research has found that 79% of Planned Parenthood facilities are within five miles of a college campus, proving college-aged women and men prime targets for the organization.

The visual display is made up of 915 pink crosses to represent the number of unborn children that die each day inside of Planned Parenthood. In addition, the display has billboards that cite Planned Parenthood’s own annual report numbers and testimony from former employees to call into question their “caring” image. The campus is part of a national tour that will travel 21,861 miles and go 26 universities in 14 states over the next eight weeks this fall.

The majority of this generation is against abortion, which is why Planned Parenthood never advertises the fact that they are the nation’s largest abortion vendor. So our goal is simple: we want to educate this generation about Planned Parenthood’s real motives and business model in order to turn them against the abortion Goliath and towards pro-life, pregnancy resource centers where they can go for honest, real help.

Defender of Life Award Recipients Announced

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Kristan Hawkins

Students for Life of America is pleased to announce its Defenders of Life Awards for the SFLA East and West National Conferences in January 2015.

Professor Robbie George will be presented with the award at the SFLA East National Conference in Washington, DC on January 23, 2015 and Peggy Hartshorn, Ph.D., will be presented with the award at the SFLA West Conference in San Francisco, CA on January 25, 2015.

Not registered yet? Register HERE!

SFLA is thrilled to present these two outstanding individuals with the Defenders of Life Award for their tireless advocacy of the preborn and their mothers. Our national conference attendees are in for a big treat to hear Professor Robbie George and Peggy Hartshorn speak and receive their awards. Both of these individuals are titans in the pro-life movement and have so much wisdom to pass onto the new generation of pro-life leaders. We are very excited to have this opportunity to honor Professor George and Mrs. Hartshorn for their service.

Every year at the Students for Life of America National Conference, the Defender of Life Award is given to those pro-life heroes who have made bold and courageous steps to advance the pro-life movement, and defend the most defenseless among us – the preborn child, on the national stage within their sphere of influence.

Professor Robbie George is the holder of the McCormick Chair in Jurisprudence at Princeton University and the founding director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He is an incredible conservative, pro-life, Christian thinker and speaker. He is chairman of the United State Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). He has served on the President’s Council on Bioethics and as a presidential appointee to the US Commission on Civil Rights. Professor George will be giving the keynote address at the SFLA East Coast National Conference.

Peggy Hartshorn became involved in the pro-life movement soon after Roe v. Wade when she and her husband joined the local Right to Life group, and they began housing pregnant women in their home in 1974. Mrs. Hartshorn is the president of Heartbeat International. Under her leadership, Heartbeat has grown from a network of 100 affiliated pregnancy help centers to the most expansive network of pregnancy help ministries in the world, with 1,800 pregnancy help centers, medical clinics, maternity homes, non-profit adoption agencies, and abortion recovery programs, on every inhabited continent (over 1,200 in the United States). Mrs. Hartshorn will be giving the keynote address at the SFLA West Coast Conference.

The SFLA East Coast National Conference is the largest pro-life conference in the world and SFLA is proud to host the second annual West Coast Conference, which saw huge success its first year. It is an honor to be able to give these two dynamic, pro-life heroes the highest award that SFLA gives out at our national conferences.

Previous Defenders of Life Award winners include Congressman Christopher Smith (R-NJ), Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, Father Frank Pavone, Abby Johnson, David Bereit, and Phyllis Schlafly.

Vandals Use Nazi Swastikas to Cover Pro-Life Chalk Messages at Eastern Michigan University

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Kristan Hawkins

Following National Pro-Life Chalk Day last week, where pro-life student groups drew positive messages with chalk at their colleges, universities and high schools across the country, students at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, MI found today that vandals that covered their drawings with the Nazi swastika symbol and threw water on the chalkings as well.

The pro-life student group wrote slogans like “Life is precious, let’s protect it” and “Love them both” and “Women regret abortion.”

“Eastern Michigan Students for Life has two main goals on campus: inform the student body about abortion and help women in crisis pregnancies. To achieve both of these goals, we have loving, meaningful, and civil conversations on campus with our peers,” explained Rueben Ainley, Vice President of Eastern Michigan University Students for Life. “We also have many events planned throughout the year to educate the student body about abortion. The vandalism that took place on our sidewalk chalking display shows that some people who disagree with us do not want to have dialogue about abortion but instead show their point of view through vandalism and hatred.”

Chalking is a common activity for many pro-life student groups nationally – it’s fun, inexpensive and an effective and creative way to get out the pro-life message to college students who may be facing an unplanned pregnancy or who may just want to be more involved in the pro-life club.

Pro-life students have every right to have their voice heard as anyone on any college campus. Drawing swastikas next to positive messages of love and hope are unconscionable. Our pro-life movement serves to help and support those who are marginalized by society.

The vandalism occurred last night (Sunday, October 5) while the pro-life students were drawing their messages.

“This vandalism shows the intolerance of some people on campus who have differing views than us,” said Ainley. “Eastern Michigan Students for Life, through our dedicated leadership team and members, want to change hearts and minds through loving means.”

Former Rep. Bart Stupak’s Betrayal Still Resonates – Taxpayer Dollars are Funding Abortions

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Kristan Hawkins

Originally posted at www.theblaze.com

Former Congressman Bart Stupak from Michigan, a supposed pro-life Democrat, had the votes to stop Obamacare dead in its tracks back in 2010. He had a small but solid band of pro-life members of Congress that were willing to block Obamacare because it funded abortion with taxpayer dollars.

He had the votes. He had them.

For months, in an epic showing of unity, dozens of pro-life groups came together under the Stop the Abortion Mandate coalition to educate the American public that indeed, Obamacare funded abortion directly with taxpayer dollars. The campaign was working and poll after poll showed that Americans got the message and over 70 percent were adamantly against funding abortion with taxpayer dollars.

The coalition supported both Republicans and Democrats who were fighting to stop Obamacare because it funded abortion. The coalition especially fought for those pro-life Democrats who were facing an uphill battle in their own party. Many on both sides of the aisle desperately wanted affordable health care for all Americans and rightly so. But they understood that this great goal couldn’t be met by sacrificing the weakest among us and having taxpayers foot the bill for it.

Taxpayer funded abortion in Obamacare was never considered to be a fatal flaw in the law until the last minute when Congressman Stupak and his band of followers refused to back down. As one of the leaders of the Stop the Abortion Mandate coalition, I was throwing all my support behind these members, as well many of the other pro-life groups.

But Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) and President Barack Obama needed those votes, and they were going to do whatever it took to make sure that they had them.

Continue reading at The Blaze –>

What About Rape?

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Kristan Hawkins

Pro-lifers need to know how to answer the “what about rape?” question. This week, we are launching our national We Care Tour visiting several college campuses this fall, addressing this very question, not shirking from it.

We will have the very real and honest conversations that need to be had; pass out rape whistles, sexual consent cards, and hotline numbers; and tell the stories of those women who conceived because of rape.

Surrogacy Diminishes Life

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Kristan Hawkins

Studies have suggested that many couples who have trouble conceiving a child naturally have turned to surrogacy in recent years. Either by using their own sperm and eggs or those that have been donated, they pay a woman to carry their child to term and then claim the child as their own – in most circumstances.

Last year a surrogate was offered an extra $10,000 to abort the baby she was carrying for a couple because an ultrasound showed the baby was going to be born with severe disabilities. It’s an incredible story where the biological parents demanded the surrogate have a late-term abortion and the surrogate fleeing the state to somewhere where she could have the child and place it for adoption.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to surrogacy. Babies are treated as pure consumerism – easily created and easily discarded if unwanted.

The latest surrogacy story is heart-breaking as well. An Australian couple, where the husband is a sex offender who spent three years in jail, paid a woman in Thailand to have their child. She ended up having twins – a boy and a girl – and the boy had Down syndrome. The couple only wanted the girl and left the boy behind in Thailand. The surrogate is taking care of the boy, named Gammy, and now wants his sister back with her. Oh, and the Australian couple want the money back that they paid for their children to be conceived and born. They said they would have ordered an abortion if they knew the baby would have a disability.

Wesley J. Smith at National Review Online uses this particular case to demonstrate his valid point:

“Surrogacy and IVF has objectified procreation. Now, it can be about not just having a baby to unconditionally love, but about ordering a baby that meets specifications.”

And there is the case of celebrity talk show host Sheri Shepherd, who, after filing divorce from her husband and hiring a surrogate to carry their child, wants nothing to do with the newborn and has asked the courts to release her from any parenting duties or obligations.

The Washington Post ran a story in 2010 on a couple who are in their early 30s and fertile and who froze embryos because they want to wait to start a family. Said the wife: “Our five frozen embryos, which we call our baby blastocysts, will remain in storage until we are ready to use them. … Now, we have some insurance against future infertility.”

“Use them” – not love them. That’s exactly what has happened. These children are being used. It is a gross commercialization of the greatest gift we have: life itself.

The National Catholic Register points to a disturbing show out of Britain to illustrate this point:

“Last year, the television show Parent Makers followed the same-sex British couple Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow. The Drewitt-Barlows have used surrogates and donor eggs to have five children. In the trailer for the show, Barrie tells his curly-haired son Orlando, “I paid for a gorgeous designer child with green eyes, olive skin and straight, blonde hair.” Orlando defends himself by responding, “I don’t have straight hair. I don’t care about that.” Barrie retorts, “Yeah, but I care.” [emphasis mine]

Life is diminished to a commercial product and discarding that product, either before birth or after, is merely seen as contractual and within the rights of everyone involved in the creation of the child. The child. How often it is forgotten that a unique human being is at the center of the entire debate.

Infertility is a devastating diagnosis and the pain is truly unimaginable unless one is unfortunate enough to have to go through it. But it is never a good thing to go down the road of IVF and surrogacy because they are at the beginning of a very slippery slope that, instead of valuing life to the fullest, devalues it to the point of commercialization and materialism.

Women’s Health Protection Act is Awful

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Kristan Hawkins

The U.S. Senate will be holding a hearing this week on the Women’s Health Protection Act – a pretty-sounding name for an awful bill that would roll back years of pro-life laws that sought to save the lives of preborn children and protect their mothers.

Abortion advocates and Planned Parenthood have reason to be worried about the business of abortion in this country: in 2013 alone, 22 states enacted a total of 70 restrictions on abortion, which is the second highest number of abortion restrictions to become law in a single year. Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest provider of abortions – their business model will suffer if more women don’t get abortions every year.

The name of the bill is disingenuous to the actual protection of women’s health. By rolling back common sense laws like waiting periods, ultrasounds before abortion, and admitting privileges for abortionists, women’s health is put at risk. Why would a woman choose to go to an abortion doctor without knowing that he had admitting privileges to nearby hospitals in case anything goes wrong? And they do go wrong. Last year a 29-year-old kindergarten teacher died at the hands of LeRoy Carhardt in Maryland when she went for a late-term abortion of her 33-week-old baby. In 2012, a young woman died from a botched abortion at a Planned Parenthood in Chicago – the autopsy showed the injuries were survivable if she had gotten proper medical attention.

Why wouldn’t an abortion facility be subject to the same medical standards as other outpatient facilities? These laws are enacted precisely to protect women from “house of horrors” situations like those of Kermit Gosnell, who did unspeakable horrors to not only the babies he killed after botched abortions but to the women themselves who came to him.

If pro-choice legislators truly wanted to protect women, they would fight to make sure abortion facilities and the abortionists are up to all medical standards that other facilities would normally have to meet to be compliant as surgical centers.

The abortion advocates in the Senate pushing this bill are just that – advocates of abortion. They don’t care about women’s health but are under the thumb of groups like Planned Parenthood who need abortion to be completely unrestricted so they can meet and exceed their bottom lines. It was recently reported that Planned Parenthood has abortion quotas that its affiliates are required to meet each year – they even gave out an award in Colorado for a Planned Parenthood facility that surpassed their quota. With more and more abortion restrictions being passed around the country, will Planned Parenthood make their abortion quotas, which essentially put a value on each woman and the little life that is exterminated? Hopefully not.

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who introduced the bill last November, said that“A new federal law is necessary to stop anti-choice legislators from using women’s health and safety as a ploy to enact unconscionable and unconstitutional state statutes that obstruct and block women from essential healthcare.”

Firstly, abortion is not “essential healthcare” nor is it healthcare at all. Secondly, Sen. Blumenthal and other proponents of this bill are using the same scare tactics they use whenever they need to exacerbate the so-called war on women. By plainly making up statements about abortion access, the Left isn’t helping themselves. Lastly, the regulations that passed in most states are common sense rules, like waiting periods and ultrasounds, which are favored by a majority of Americans. It’s the least the abortion industry can do for women. To say that these laws harm women’s health is ludicrous.

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