On Jan. 23, dozens of University of Georgia students and Athens pro-lifers came together and braved winter storm Jonas to make a powerful stand against abortion. During the hour long candlelight vigil, men and women stood side by side in front of UGA’s iconic arch, a heavily trafficked location that separates downtown Athens from campus.
The event, held on the weekend of the 43rd anniversary of the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision, was put together by the university’s official Student’s for Life Organization. The students and other adults in attendance held signs with statements on them such as “Abortion Hurts Women,” “Life: The First Inalienable Right,” and “Adoption: The Loving Option.”
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Of the bystanders that passed the vigil, most said nothing, some thanked the pro-life activists, and a few made their pro-choice stance very clear. One pro-choice woman, upon seeing the “Abortion Hurts Women” sign, yelled out “You misspelled ‘helps’!”
Accounting major Julia Moldenhawer, a junior at UGA, fervently disagrees that abortion helps women. She said, “Most of the people who really step up and speak out are women, because such an overwhelming amount of abortion victims are women.”
“It’s like Planned Parenthood,” she said, “they make so much money off of abortion, so they’re biased towards it. They say everything about abortion is good because, ‘This is how we help women! Women, women, women!’ But really women are huge victims of the abortion industry.”
“Most of the people who are pro-life are female,” Moldenhawer continued. I think it’s a stereotype that it’s all these angry old white men — I actually feel like both sides of the issue are dominated by women. A lot of men are afraid to give their input because they think that it’s a woman’s body, it’s a woman’s choice, so it’s only an issue for women. One of the things I love most about Students for Life at UGA is the amount of men who step up and are involved, and they really show that it is a human rights issue and that every human life has dignity. It doesn’t take being a woman to realize that, at any stage, life is precious. It’s beautiful.”
Guy Hancock, a junior Agriculture Economics major, echoed the belief that anti-abortion advocacy is a role that should be filled by both genders. “If you see a baby, you think, at what point would it be okay to abort this baby? And the thing is, man or woman, if you think about it really hard, you come to the conclusion pretty quickly that it’s not okay. At all.”
As generational differences on abortion have narrowed in recent years, UGA Student for Life president Denton Boone said the most important thing that young pro-lifers can do is continue to generate discussion on the topic.
“A lot of people don’t want to talk about it because it’s a controversial issue,” he said. “They tend to shy away from talking about it, which makes sense, honestly, because it’s an unpleasant subject.”
“We need to talk about it,” Boone continued. And I mean we need healthy conversation, not just arguing. But that’s difficult because people typically feel so passionate about abortion, one way or another.”
Athens Right to Life president, Michael Morris, said he would “like to see our national laws changed to reflect our morality.”
“If it’s not against the law they’ll think, ‘well it’s not against the law, so why should we think anything is wrong with it?’” he said.
Although the mainstream media’s treatment of abortion rights would lead most to believe that there are very few young people, men and women alike, who support a pro-life agenda, the UGA Students for Life and other similar organizations are proving the liberal abortion narrative wrong with their campus activism.
“If you bring it down to the fact that it is a human being, and it is life, it is a very simple reason why we are pro-life,” Moldenhawer said.
“We’re a peaceful organization and we’re not trying to step on anyone’s toes,” Boone explained, “but we want to seriously talk to people about the issue and hopefully get them to see why we believe what we do and why being pro-life is important to us.”