If I were to ask someone what the greatest atrocity in human history is, most would say the Holocaust, others might say the Rwandan Genocide or the first and second World Wars. But seldom would people suggest the greatest atrocity in human history is abortion. According to the World Health Organization, in 2008 there were an estimated 43.8 million abortions worldwide. That is every 1 in 5 pregnancies ending in abortion across the globe. If these estimates are near accurate then more babies were killed in 2008 than every country involved in World War I combined. A total of 37.5 million soldiers died during WWI while in 2008 alone over 40 million babies were aborted. For those counting, the assertion that abortion is the greatest atrocity in human history is now a fact.
One movement aimed at countering abortion is Students For Life. Students For Life Organization (SFL) is America’s largest and most active pro-life organization for students. It was founded in the late 1970s as a student-run volunteer organization hosting annual conferences. Since 2006 SFL has been training and starting pro-life organizations and chapters across the United States.
In 2015 I attended my first Students For Life conference. On behalf of the American Family Association, my brother Wesley and I participated in the East Coast conference in Glenarden, Maryland. Nearly 2,500 high school and college-aged students from across the country joined us. Kristan Hawkins, President of SFL, opened the conference with a letter from Martin Luther King Jr., written while he was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama. One line of the letter reads, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” That letter resonated because the abortion industry has become so empowered in America it is pushing abortion across the world. Speaker Lila Rose, president of Live Action, informed attendees that the abortion industry is a multimillion-dollar business responsible for aborting nearly 3,000 babies every day in the United States.
As Wesley and I stood in the halls of First Baptist Church in Glenarden, Maryland we were amazed at the number of young students in this fight for life. While amazed at the support we were also saddened that it is legal to kill innocent babies in a mother’s womb. The abortion issue had never hit home with me before the conference. I knew the politics of it but I never saw the darkness behind it. There is much to be said about abortion and the devastating effects it has on our culture. The American family has to continue fighting for these children in the womb who have no voice of their own.
The narrative circulating that the Millennial generation is out of touch with the abortion issue is a lie. We are more engaged than ever on the issue of abortion. Engaging in conversation with student after student at the conference helped me realize that we are not in this fight for life alone. There are organizations, students and adults across this country that believe life begins at conception.
