Dear Friends and Allies,
As many of you know, I’m a student of history and, since there is no playbook for how to end abortion in our nation, I believe history gives us our best guide for how our movement must proceed in the coming years and decades of this long battle.
While I have no crystal ball nor do I proclaim to have all the answers, I would like to humbly offer some insights.
I believe the biggest threat to our movement is not Trump walking back previous pro-life commitments or Kalama’s all-out campaign to end our pregnancy centers, free speech rights similar to what’s happening in the UK, and the Senate filibuster to pack the federal bench & ratify new states.
No, I actually believe the biggest threat is ourselves – our mindsets – which will lead to decreased recruitment, training, and mobilization of our grassroots army of love.
Recruiting, training, and mobilizing our army will be key factors to our ultimate success as they were with social movements of our past.
Can you think of a social movement in America that has lost while maintaining the largest size and most vigor?
To further prove my point, look at the struggles we face this fall with several late-term abortion ballot referendums. Most will likely be a political loss for our movement because, in most states, a politically sophisticated, organized, and well-funded, state-wide movement is not present.
Please note: I’m not saying this to give us an excuse not to fight as I believe we have a moral imperative to do so and that is exactly why I’m so proud of Students for Life leaders who have been volunteering with as many organizations as possible & will soon be door knocking with our team at SFLAction.
With the rapid growth of our movement since the launch of Students for Life of America & 40 Days for Life, we have more grassroots folks engaged than ever. Yet, many of us were not alive during or do not remember our movement’s past struggles like those in the 1990s – the battles trying to earn a seat at the Republican Party table, President Clinton’s vetoes of transformative legislation, and the passage of the FACE Act, which stopped activism for a time.
In 2024, we have many different battles we are fighting.
The rapid pace of information, intense conversations happening on social media, and 24-hours of streaming news from pro-abortion newsrooms have been constant in these last two years with two goals: Confuse voters about the state of American abortion laws & Depress the Pro-Life Movement.
As is their goal on college campuses, their mission is to silence our movement. To stop the vocal opposition that allowed us to finally see the victory of Roe’s reversal.
When our movement is silenced – whether it’s forcibly by the Biden-Harris Administration or through our own frustrations with lack of progress – it’s game over, they win.
Yet, we win, every time abortion is talked about – as the human hearts of most know there’s something not quite “right” with ending the life of your child for conveinence.
This is why the media continues to write the stories of pro-lifers, understandably, upset and angered by the commentary coming from the Trump-Vance campaign.
I’m not here to make apologies for the Campaign and their political miscalculations, which are dividing us and could very well lead to their defeat.
But I can tell you with 100% certainty what the mainstream media and the Harris-Walz campaign want, they want us frustrated, angry, and not voting.
So, not voting is not an option as this Presidential Campaign is like no other before.
The broader issues at risk this election cycle will seep into our movement, guaranteed.
Do you believe pregnancy centers should have the freedom to operate without having to violate their consciences and refer to abortion facilities?
Do you believe that on social media we should have the right to educate Americans about the violence of abortion?
Do you believe on campuses that students should be free to continue to recruit, train, and change the minds of our peers to expand our movement without fear of expulsion?
Do you believe we must retain the filibuster procedure in the U.S. Senate to prevent a 51 majority from ratifying new states like Washington, D.C. (i.e. new Senators), adding new seats to the Supreme Court, and confirming Attorneys General and Cabinet Secretaries who will decide what they believe should be in the Constitution, not what’s in it?
Then, you have only person who you can vote for President.
The questions I posed above were not rhetoric or hype as I wrote them based off of past actions or current promises coming from Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz.
I truly believe that writing in a nonsense name or sitting out this election would be a moral wrong – not only for the lives of children who are on the line but for the future existence of our movement, for our very right to continue to recruit, educate and mobilize.
However, if President Trump is elected, you and I both know we will have a lot of work in store for us as we will have to do battle with pro-choice members of his Administration. And I’m certain there will be disappointments.
While I’m glad President Trump did the right thing in saying he’ll vote “No” on Florida’s all-trimester abortion constitutional referendum this fall, he’s now made it clear that he’s not 100% pro-life, as he has said repeatedly he thinks preventing abortions when a baby’s heart is beating is wrong and believes abortion, the greatest human rights threat of our time, should merely to be a “state” issue.
However, he has proven to listen to us when we united and demanded that he vote against Florida’s Amendment 4. As First Things just noted, “Pro-life pressure worked.”
And because he has said he wants to take abortion out of the federal government, we do have a long list of actions he can start taking the moment he is sworn in like appointing cabinet members who aren’t abortion activists like a Health & Human Services Secretary who won’t force abortion in every state, an Attorney General who will stop putting praying grandmas in jail, etc. Plus, there’s the $700 million dollars flowing from taxpayers to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion vendor, that he can stop.
So, with him, I have sincere hope that all of us working together we will be able advance some of our key movement objectives to save some lives.
Importantly, our movement will be able to continue to move forward – recruiting, training, and mobilizing – instead of battling those who want to silence us online and on campus and shut down our organizations and events.
In other words, we will live to fight another day --- to fight for years to come with Students for Life Action to ensure Republican candidates at all levels know pro-lifers will hold them accountable to being pro-life, to grow our nationwide network or support services like StandingWithYou.org, to re-build community and state-wide pro-life efforts like our Campaign for Abortion Free Cities, and to transform the hears of every high school and college student via Students for Life of America.
We will live to continue recruiting, training, and mobilizing until we make abortion unthinkable and unavailable…the victory we are chasing.
So, today, I implore you, along with myself, to guard our mindsets. Keep moving forward. Do not be discouraged, no matter what November brings.
We won’t win our ultimate victory, the end of abortion, simply once every four years in a voting booth – we will win this by showing up every day.
So, keep recruiting, keep educating, and keep mobilizing.
If we do this, we will win.
Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action, with more than 1,400 groups on middle and high school, college and university, medical and law school campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, Explicitly Pro-Life.