FILE -- Jan. 22, 2015: Anti-abortion demonstrators march past the Supreme Court in Washington during the annual March for Life. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
At this year’s March for Life, and at the hundreds of similar events taking place across the country this month to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the Supreme Court cases that legalized abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, there will be thousands upon thousands of young faces in the crowds. Many will be young women who are pro-life -- a fact that pro-abortion liberals cannot fathom. During a recent interview, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz lamented that millennial women aren’t activists for abortion “rights” and are complacent because their “entire lives have been lived after Roe v. Wade was decided.”
She’s wrong.
Young women not only aren’t complacent about abortion but they are against it entirely.
Abortion advocates cannot wrap their minds around the fact that young women are the majority of participants in the pro-life movement. For example, the faces of young Millennial women were plastered in every newspaper following the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision in the summer of 2014 as they stood outside the Court cheering that the government couldn’t force private companies to pay for abortifacients.
Voters under 30-years-old were once the most ardent abortion supporters. In 1991, 36 percent of 18-29-year-olds believed abortion should be legal in all circumstances yet in 2010, only 24 percent of the same age group believed abortion should remain legal in all circumstances, making this generation more pro-life than their parents. In addition, millennials are the age group that is most in favor of a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, at 52 percent.
This generation grew up seeing the ultrasound photos of babies in the womb and knew they were just that – babies, not blobs of tissue. Yet this is only the beginning because the tide is turning and these young women, these Millennials, are indeed the face of the pro-life movement.
Last year a crew from ABC News’ “Nightline” followed me around the March for Life and to an abortion facility and college campus in New Mexico. The producer remarked several times that she was shocked at how many young women were at the March.
In New Mexico, the Students for Life group from the University of New Mexico-Albuquerque was made up of mostly women, two of whom were pregnant at the time of filming.
The film crew went to the UNM campus to film controversy and instead saw resources for pregnant and parenting students passed out and calm, thoughtful conversations taking place. Despite having a bold display showing how legal abortion has killed women, the only controversy that day came when older women, staff at the college, came to yell at our young students.
And this past fall, a liberal reporter tagged along with Emily, our West Coast Regional Coordinator, in California on an ordinary day at work – meeting with students, driving from campus to campus, leading trainings on how to better convey the pro-life message. The reporter was shocked that Emily was not only ardently pro-life, but able to articulate her position eloquently and accurately.
These are the faces of the pro-life movement and perhaps what should scare the DNC Chair even more is that young, pro-lifers are more passionately pro-life than young pro-choicers are about being pro-choice, as insightfully noted by outgoing NARAL president Nancy Keenan in 2010. She called it the “intensity gap.”
Last year in Washington State, with only a day’s notice, dozens of young, pro-life students descended at the state capitol to testify at a hearing on a parental notification law.
Planned Parenthood panicked when they saw our students and sent out an email to local supporters, urging them to please show up – and some did, retirees mostly, which was a great contrast to our young men and women sitting in the room.
This generation is ready to make abortion unthinkable. They expose the shady business practices of Planned Parenthood on their campuses. They hold baby showers for students facing unplanned pregnancies. They come to the March for Life and other pro-life rallies around the country by the busloads.
Roe v. Wade didn’t settle the issue of abortion, and Millennials are not complacent when it comes to abortion. In fact, it has been Millennials at the forefront of the fight to defund Planned Parenthood.
David Daleiden, who released the undercover videos of Planned Parenthood this past summer showing executives discussing the sale of baby body parts, is only 26-years-old.
Lila Rose, another Millennial, has led the charge in uncovering the unsavory business practices of Planned Parenthood.
Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood Director and also another Millennial, has exposed the practices of the abortion giant from the inside.
I launched Students for Life’s full-time operations in 2006 when I was just 21.
In 10 years, student pro-life groups have skyrocketed from 180 to over 930, more than 31,000 students have been trained, and we’ve taken the Planned Parenthood Project to more than 200 campuses.
Roe v. Wade will be overturned and Millennials, much to the disappointment of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her friends, will be the ones leading the charge.
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