President Trump addressed the March for Life on Friday, vowing to continue passing and advocating for policies that protect the unborn and encouraging the pro-life movement to continue to stand for what is right. He also correctly identified the core of the pro-life movement: the youth.
“I am truly proud to stand with you,” he said. “Young people are the heart of the March for Life, and it’s your generation that is making America the pro-family, pro-life nation. The pro-life movement is led by strong women, amazing faith leaders, and brave students that carry on the legacy of the pioneers before us.”
Young adults, college students, and high schoolers truly are the backbone of the fight for life. I attended the March for Life for the first time as a college student, joined by hundreds of my peers and tens of thousands of students from other schools. Thousands more came before us, and as the movement grows, even more will follow in our footsteps.
Young people in the United States still lean pro-choice on abortion. But that has slowly been changing. Today, a majority of young voters agree abortion should be restricted, and a poll last year found that nearly one-third of people in the U.S. ages 18-29 said their views on abortion had changed within the last five years. Young adults are also more likely than other age groups to say abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, according to a Gallup poll. Another survey found that young adults have been “trending more anti-abortion” over the past decade. And 47% of young respondents, many of whom identified as pro-choice, admitted in a Marist poll that abortion is more likely to do harm to a woman’s life than good.
Young people bring conviction and enthusiasm to the movement, and that passion is changing the culture. The U.S. abortion rate is at the lowest it’s ever been, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And as the pro-life movement grows, that number will, Lord willing, continue to fall.
For better or worse, young pro-lifers don’t care about the legal distinctions and the rhetorical nuance. At least, I didn’t when I was in high school and college. I only cared about one truth: that every child is a sacred and precious gift from God. This principle defines the pro-life movement and those who fight for it. And it will be this generation “powered by prayer and motivated by unselfish love,” to quote Trump, that will spread this message and stand for what is right.
