On March 13, pro-life activist and Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins visited Hopkins as part of her nationwide “Make Abortion Illegal Again” Speaking Tour, tabling in front of Charles Street Market during the day before delivering a talk in Gilman 50 in the evening.
Hawkins was invited to speak by Hopkins’s Voice for Life, a pro-life, anti-abortion student organization whose website states that the organization exists for two primary reasons.
“First, to advocate for the right to life of the unborn through respectful and productive dialogues. Second, to support pregnant and parenting students by connecting them with resources that can help them achieve both short-term and long-term success,” their website states.
Voice for Life is partnered with Students for Life of America, which allows members to contact local resource coordinators and connect with other pro-life events and organizations while providing a community for pro-life students.
A graduate of Bethany College in West Virginia, Hawkins has served as president and CEO of the nonprofit Students for Life of America since 2006, expanding the group’s presence to thousands of college and high school campuses. Hawkins has been traveling to college campuses across the country for her “Make Abortion Illegal Again” speaking tour since September.
Hawkins's visit to Hopkins was anticipated by pro-choice and progressive student groups on campus, who responded to her visit by preparing their own programing and tabling. When the doors of Gilman 50 opened and the audience began taking their seats, students opposed to Hawkins and her beliefs appeared to outnumber those who did. Several rows were taken up by students wearing shirts bearing messages in support of Planned Parenthood.
Advocates for Reproductive and Sexual Health (ARSH), a student organization on campus designed to fight barriers to reproductive health, stood outside Gilman Hall to assert their firm belief in pro-choice legislation as an opposing stance on abortion rights to Hawkins’s. They stressed the importance of presenting information on Maryland’s current abortion laws, which permit abortion at any stage in pregnancy.
ARSH Treasurer Greta Persian described her stance on abortion in an interview with The News-Letter.
“I'm very pro-abortion. I think abortion should be allowed at any trimester, in any situation,” she said. “I think that women, or anyone carrying a child, has the right to choose what to do with their body, in their instance, whether there was some sort of situation they want an abortion, or whether they can't, you know, handle the kid, or any sort of reason, it is a woman's right to choose. I would say abortion at any part of the pregnancy is my stance.”
In her remarks, Hawkins outlined her efforts to foster and empower pro-life activism on college campuses, and lobby for government policies that recognize fetal personhood and outlaw abortion. She described her goal to change societal attitudes to abortion.
“[We strive to] change the environment on college campuses and generally in our society, so no one ever again feels like she has to choose to pay someone to end violently the life of her child in order to be successful or complete her career goals,” she said.
Hawkins expressed pride in the recent achievements of the pro-life movement, celebrating the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey and the subsequent abortion bans that were put in place in states around the country. She criticized the Biden Administration for upholding FDA approval and widespread availability of the contraception medication mifepristone and for continuing to support federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
In an interview with The News-Letter, freshman Gavin Reimers described his stance on abortion and his perspective on Hawkins’s presentation.
“I would say that I’m pro-life, and I’ve grown up that way, so it was interesting to hear other people’s point of view,” he said. “I grew up in a very rural, conservative area.”
According to Hawkins, the pro-life position is simple and straightforward.
“Pro-lifers believe what science confirms and what 96% of biologists tell us, that human life begins at the moment of conception, when a part from mom and a part from dad united and created a unique, unrepeatable whole human,” she stated. “We believe in the pro-life movement that human being deserves equal rights.”
At times, Hawkins argued with audience members who challenged the logic or feasibility of the pro-life position or questioned the transparency or tactics of her organization. In a debate with an audience member who questioned her position on women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies, Hawkins reiterated the pro-life position and its relationship to choice.
“I have a right to do a lot with my body,” she said. “The thing is, and what we would argue in the pro life movement, is that we actually do have laws that say you don't have a right to do anything with your body if what you're doing with your body harms another body. You can't go start smoking in a pulmonary ward in children's hospital and say, ‘it's [my] right to do [what I want] with my body.’“
Responding to an audience member who suggested that pro-life conservatives are hypocritical for advocating for more births but not increasing social services, Hawkins pointed out that pro-lifers can come from many different political ideologies and religious backgrounds, and differing state policies when it comes to child support and social services are really a result of different views on the role of government in our lives.
Hawkins also stressed that her pro-life stance was consistent with her support for smaller government. She believes it is the government’s responsibility to protect the safety of its citizens, which she defined as a child within the womb as well, and added that the 14th amendment of 1868, designed to extend certain rights and liberties to all American citizens, which she believes also included unborn fetuses.
“When the 14th amendment was ratified in 1868, the child in the womb was considered a person,” she said. “In fact, [...] the author of the 14th amendment also had written openly that the child in the womb was a person. The framers of the 14th amendment, those men who ratified the 14th amendment, never meant to exclude a freeborn person. In fact, they also talked about how the 14th amendment was to apply to all vulnerable peoples.”
In response to a question about why she was not upfront about the religious affiliation of Student for Life of America, Hawkins asserted that the religious affiliation was only a recent change to protect it from being targeted in the event of Kamala Harris winning the presidency.
“We changed our faith affiliation,” she said. “We initially had no faith affiliation [...] and we did that anticipating if Kamala Harris would win, because we knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that there would be a task to limit our organization, and the fact that we are all mostly Jews or Christians [...] and the few atheists who work for our organization are pretty tolerant of our faith, so we felt like it was the safest option.”
Hawkins then asserted that the belief in the inherent value of human life is not a primarily Christian or religious position but, rather, one that has fairly widespread acceptance.
Despite the clear fault lines between Hawkins’s view and much of the audience, which involved a few clashes over ideas, the event was largely dominated by respectful dialogue. One audience member declared that he supported Hawkins’s right to have a platform for her views, despite his strong disagreement with them.
In an interview with The News-Letter, ARSH representative Mehuli Basu Roy described the organization’s reasons for attending the event, noting that they were invited to represent their perspective and point of view by Voice for Life to promote an open exchange of ideas.
“We’re just here in the spirit of creating an open dialogue and sharing all the information about abortion,” she said. “We’re not here to argue, we’re not here to engage with the other side. We’re just here to share our ideas.”
In an interview with The News-Letter, freshman Philip Dai emphasized a similar point.
“It’s interesting to see different opinions come to campus, no matter their stance,” he said. “It’s good to be able to hear why people believe in things.”
Lana Swindle contributed reporting to this article.
Samhi Boppana is an Editor-in-Chief for The News-Letter and co-president of ARSH. She was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.
