While I know you can’t be with us right now as we are rushing around from campus to campus hosting events and training leaders before the school year comes to an end, I want to give you an inside glimpse of just how important Students for Life groups are.
You see, once we get a new Students for Life group started on a campus, our team constantly challenges the new group to do 2 things: boldly speak the truth about abortion and stand up for those on campus facing unplanned, crisis pregnancies.
And our Pregnant on Campus Initiative does just that. We train pro-life students how to reach women in crisis on campus and provide emotional and material support to help student mothers choose life.
Sadly, we know that if Students for Life groups aren’t out on their campuses with this message of love and hope, mothers will succumb to the advice of their campus health centers and end up at Planned Parenthood, where 94% of pregnant women who walk in receive an abortion.
This was exactly the case last week at Portland Community College (PCC) when our Students for Life group was hosting a diaper drive on campus.
A young girl saw the Students for Life table and said that she just found out she was pregnant. She told our pro-life students that her boyfriend was telling her she had to have an abortion and was too afraid to call her parents because she knew how disappointed they would be in her.
She was a mess and didn’t know what to do.
Thankfully, the PCC Students for Life group had been trained by our team in what to do in this exact situation so they gently calmed her down and sat with her to talk about how her pregnancy was going and what she was going to need in order to choose life. They even gave her a Pregnancy Resources Bag with a book about her pregnancy and ginger candies to ease morning sickness.
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Then they quickly reached out to their local pro-life community with her needs for housing and transportation support. Within minutes, e-mails where flying in. Already, they have secured her safe housing and a local couple has donated everything she needs (crib, carseat, stroller, etc) to have her child.
While we rejoice that this scared young woman is choosing life and will have a support team beside her every step the way, the fact remains that there are thousands more women, just like her, that we need to reach.
But the fact is, there are thousands more women we need to reach. And we’ve got to help them before they turn to Planned Parenthood.
I know our more than 838 Students for Life groups on campuses across the nation are the ones who can do it. Because we’re right there where she is in her moment of ultimate crisis, and we can reach her before it’s too late.
When a Students for Life group starts on a campus, they are standing up on their campus, telling women and men… “We’re here when you need help. Come to us first.” They create the resources like diaper changing stations, lactation rooms, and material needs collection drives that she needs to stay in school and choose life for her child. They “go to bat” with their administration making sure she isn’t discriminated against because of her pregnancy. They form the loving environment she needs to know that she isn’t alone through pregnant and parenting support groups and personal relationships.
They make sure she is told that there is hope and that for her and her baby’s future, while now changed, is very bright.
