Kristan Hawkins is founder and president of Students for Life, which, her website says, “exists to abolish abortion by transforming our culture by recruiting, training, and mobilizing this pro-life generation, who are the direct targets of today’s abortion industry.” She frequently appears on news programs to defend the pro-life viewpoint and is host of the weekly podcast Explicitly Pro-Life. She will be a mainstage speaker at Legatus’ Summit 2023 to be held at The Four Seasons Resort in Orlando, FL, in February.
How did you get involved in the pro-life movement?
I grew up in a conservative Protestant home in Steubenville, OH. At age 15, I began volunteering at a local pregnancy center. I learned about what abortion is and wondered why more people were not talking about how harmful it is to society.
What led you to convert to Catholicism?
When I started Students for Life, I found that the only young people crazy enough to work for my brand-new organization—willing to work for no salary, risk being unpopular, and get yelled at on college campuses—were the graduates of Franciscan University of Steubenville. I met Catholics who understood, loved, and were proud of their faith. It led me to learn more about the Catholic Church, and I joined in 2015.
What is Students for Life doing to advance the pro-life cause?
We are the world’s largest pro-life youth organization. We know that the abortion industry targets youths with its predatory practices, so we wanted to reach them first to talk about alternatives to abortion. Our goal is twofold: we want to change the minds of women at risk of having abortions and transform college campuses into becoming pro-life.
We go onto campuses, train young people to be pro-life advocates, and have conversations about abortion. No one has more conversations with this key abortion demographic than we do. We speak to nearly a million students in Gen Z during our fall and spring events. About 10 percent of those we encounter on campus change their minds, and 20 percent to 25 percent of those we connect with online change their minds.
I’m pleased to report that we outnumber the abortion movement substantially on college campuses. We serve 1,300 groups and have trained 150,000 young people, whereas Planned Parenthood has just 400 campus chapters.
We also have a sister group, Students for Life Action, which promotes pro-life legislations mostly at statehouses of government. For example, we advocated for a law prohibiting most abortions in Oklahoma that went into effect this year.
What challenges lay ahead?
When we talk to families who live in neighborhoods with an abortion clinic, we find about 75 percent of them are unaware of pro-life pregnancy centers and the alternatives they offer to abortion. We need women to know these pregnancy resources exist.
Another problem is that more than 50 percent of abortions are via abortion pills, which a woman can receive in the mail and then use them to abort her child in her bathroom. She is also given packets of acid to dissolve the child’s remains and flush them down the toilet. The Washington Post, which is not a pro-life news outlet, recently presented an exposé on this abortion-pill cartel and how dangerous it is for women. We need to keep praying and counseling women in front of clinics, but we must also realize that women’s bathrooms are becoming abortion facilities.
What will be your Summit message?
I will talk about America post-Roe v. Wade. I want to encourage everyone to get involved in the pro-life movement, whatever their skill set. For some, that might mean joining the board of a pro-life pregnancy center. For others, that might mean using their business skills to market the pro-life pregnancy centers and the alternatives they offer to abortion. Everyone has a role to play