“When Roe v. Wade was reversed last summer, many speculated that the decision led to hard times ahead, especially on usually abortion-friendly campuses. We’ve seen violence and vitriol like never before as the violence of abortion becomes the violent actions of abortion supporters. Now one year later, Students for Life of America (SFLA) reports a spike in pro-abortion discrimination accompanied with an even greater surge in pro-life activism and support,” said SFLA President Kristan Hawkins. “I am so proud of the Pro-Life Generation for weathering this storm while working ever harder to support preborn children, pregnant mothers, and parenting families.”    

• More than 100 incidents of Free Speech Violations
• Nearly 10% of SFLA groups requested assistance with harassment 
• 15,500+ people activated to take pro-life action 
• SFLA students’ volunteer hours valued at $24,040,800.00 over the school year   

WASHINGTON, D.C. (06-13-2023) – On the heels of the Dobbs decision anniversary, the first Post-Roe school year has come to an end, and Students for Life of America (SFLA) President Kristan Hawkins gave the class “Straight As for Courage, Compassion, and Consistency in working to rebuild a culture of life. She continued: “As I experienced myself as Antifa and radical, pro-abortion trans activists attacked an event I lead at Virginia Commonwealth University, violence too often followed peaceful pro-life events. Whether it was a machete-wielding New York professor, urine tossing activists, or a student chewing up a model of preborn babies, it was wild and weird this year. But we will not concede the territory of our college and university campuses to abortion-loving bullies.”  

Pro-Abortion Intolerance & Targeting  

Pro-life students increasingly reported that they were silenced and strongarmed by their peers, faculty, and student governments while using their First Amendment rights on campus. SFLA’s legal counsel saw the number of free speech violations triple from years past.  

• More than 100 free speech violations were reported for the 2022 – 2023 school year.   
• Nearly 10 percent of SFLA students groups requested assistance due to harassment 
• The most reported issue was destruction/theft of property, followed in a close second by school administration censorship.  
• Nearly 25 demand letters from SFLA supporting attorneys have been sent to schools nationwide.

“This is a record-breaking year for free speech violations; we have never seen them at this scale before. The abortion lobby is rejecting a Post-Roe America the only way they know how: by senselessly and violently attempting to shut down our student groups,” said SFLA Legal Correspondent Olivia Garza. “Thankfully, our team continues to be prepared to protect our students’ free speech rights so that we can keep sharing the truth on campus.”

To learn more about SFLA’s findings on increased free speech issues, read “SFLA Reports Free Speech Violations on School Campuses have TRIPLED!”

For examples of harassment on campus, see a recent incident of a professor destroying a pro-life table at New York’s Hunter College as seen at the Ingraham Angle,  Daily Caller, BBC News, the Christian Post, CBN, The Blaze, American Thinker, Christianity Daily, National Review, and the New York Post.   

To read more about the violence and discrimination pro-life students face, read SFLA team member Stephanie Luiz’s op-ed for National Review entitled “The Harassment of Pro-Life College Students is Getting Worse” or two SFLA students’ op-ed at The Daily Wire entitled “Is Speech On Campus Really Free? How Pro-Life Views Are Stifled By Universities.”  

SFLA’s Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement also released research on a new proximity review of Planned Parenthood facilities in relation to college campuses, finding that the abortion giant has zeroed in on college-aged women.  

• Nearly 90% of all Planned Parenthood facilities in operation are located within five miles of a college campus.  
• This is an 8.6% increase since SFLA’s previous findings in 2021.  
• Even in states which prohibit abortion, 56 Planned Parenthood facilities are still within that same range, marketing abortifacients, sex-altering and sterilizing “hormone therapy,” etc.   

To learn more about SFLA’s findings, click HERE to read the research white paper.  

Educating & Activating on Campus 

In SFLA’s mission to recruit, train, and mobilize the Pro-Life Generation to make abortion unavailable and unthinkable, SFLA team members engage in extensive outreach with students from middle school to post-graduate programs. This is a snapshot of the 2022 – 2023 school year, working with 1,400 groups across the United States, Washington D.C., and U.S. territories: 

• Nearly 55,000 conversations about abortion 
• More than 15,500 activated to pursue pro-life goals  
• 4,000+ minds changed on abortion 
• More than 20,600 activists trained

Chief topics for SFLA trainings included pro-life apologetics, why abortion is not a constitutional/human right, and the dangers of Chemical Abortion Pills.

New Pro-Life Support on Campus

SFLA is committed to creating a life-affirming culture through service, both in our communities and on our campuses. During the 2022 – 2023 school year, SFLA students made major policy changes on their campuses to better support pregnant and parenting students, adding to our requirement that all groups engage in support for pregnant and parenting students. Here are several examples:  

• At Charleston Southern University, students may no longer be dismissed for becoming pregnant outside of marriage.  
• University of Louisville created a pregnant and parenting scholarship through their school.  
• Students at Benedictine College instituted pregnant and parenting parking spaces on campus to make mothers’ lives a step or two easier.  
• The University of New Hampshire, Norwest Missouri State University, and Whitworth University all created lactation rooms for nursing moms.  
• A babysitting organization was created on the University of Scranton and is advertised on the school’s website.  
• Cooper Medical School of Rowan University created a new lactation policy to give nursing moms the time and space they needed.  
• University of La Verne instituted a baby pantry to provide pregnant and parenting students with free resources. 

To learn more about these pro-life policies, read “Check Out the Life-Affirming Policy Changes SFLA Students Made on Their Campuses in the 2022 – 2023 School Year.”  

Being Pro-Life Doesn’t Stay on Campus…It Goes Out into the Community

SFLA students are also heavily involved with SFLA’s Standing With You supportive servicesinitiative. With a strong passion for protecting preborn children and families combined with 17,663 active, engaged students, SFLA students’ volunteer hours totaled to $24,040,800.00 over the school year, using the current value of volunteer hours. 

Click HERE to view stories of students honored for their different contributions, including making cards and blankets for expectant mothers, fundraising and hosting baby showers for pregnant students on campus, volunteering at local pregnancy resource centers, establishing scholarships, and more.  

To read more about SFLA’s extensive work to protect life in service, read Hawkins’ CNN op-ed entitled “We’ve Been Preparing for Years to be the First Post-Roe Generation” and at The Daily Wire entitled “The Real Work Begins After Roe V Wade Is Overturned.”  

For interviews email [email protected] 

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Students for Life Action (SFLAction), a 501c4, along with its 501c3 sister organization, Students for Life of America (SFLA), make up the nation’s largest pro-life youth organization and a political and policy operation engaging people of all ages. Together they work to end abortion — the human rights issue of our day — and provide political, legal, and community support for women and their children, born and preborn. Headquartered in Fredericksburg, VA, SFLA has more than 1,300 groups on middle, high school, college, university, medical, and law school campuses in all 50 states. SFLA creates strategy, policy, and programming to connect those most targeted for abortion with people ready to help and builds a framework for political engagement on their behalf. SFLA and SFLAction have more conversations with those most targeted by the abortion industry than any other pro-life outreach in the world, reaching more than 2 million people across social media platforms each week and engaging in approximately 100,000 digital conversations per month. Over more than 16 years, President Kristan Hawkins has grown SFLAction/SFLA into an $18 million organization preparing for a Post-Roe America.