An Open Letter to Women from Pro-Life leaders, Activists, Legislators, Volunteers, and Abortion Survivors on the eve of great change on the issue of abortion,
February 14, 2022
Dear Women,
You are strong. Powerful. Capable. You may not have heard that from the abortion industry, but you will hear it from us, believers in a woman’s ability to choose life and to pursue all of the dreams in her heart. We live in a country with about 3,000 pregnancy resource centers and approximately 400 maternity homes, offering free services and tangible support to women and their families during pregnancy and motherhood. But the sad reality is that we know through Students for Life’s Campaign for Abortion Free Cities nationwide door knocking efforts nearly 73% of Americans cannot name their local pregnancy resource center. In a Post-Roe America that must change.
The shared goal of the signers on this letter is to ensure that no woman in an unexpected pregnancy stands alone, and every woman in crisis is connected to the life-giving, non-violent alternatives to abortion available in her area.
These alternatives to abortion have been operating in communities for decades, without government funding. Now, on the eve of the historic Dobbs v. Jackson decision, we are doing all we can to promote these resources to the women they seek to serve. Our goal is to help women connect with real people who understand what an unexpected pregnancy feels like, people who know first-hand that peer-to-peer support can be priceless, and people who empower women to choose both their child and their dreams.
This stands in stark contrast to the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood as they argue women cannot balance relationships and work, parenting and school, or complexity in life. They sell women short, and then they sell them an abortion. They leave them alone – without a child who could have been loved and with post-abortion regret, medical complications, and no support to help them rise out of the situation that they believed necessitated an abortion.
The predatory abortion industry profiting in the billions and living large on the taxpayers’ dime is working to create great fear in women about what an America without Roe v. Wade looks like. Across the country, abortion-loving entertainers, activists, politicians, and academics work to convince women that they are too weak to prosper unless they have a so-called “right” to end innocent preborn life. But “a right to abortion” is not written in invisible ink in the Constitution, while a state’s right to handle issues not identified in the Constitution is in our founding documents.
We the undersigned remind you that it was seven men on the Supreme Court that took away every state’s ability to protect its children from abortion violence. Their decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton led to legal chaos, more than 63 million preborn lives lost, and millions of men and women lied to or coerced into abortion. The changes anticipated later this year from the Supreme Court could rightly return the issue of abortion to “we the people” and away from a few judges. And people want to protect preborn children and their mothers.
In a recent Students for Life Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement poll, Millennials and Gen Z said that services for women are what they are looking for in a post-Roe America, with 8 in 10 asking to vote on life-related issues. In fact, 7 of 10 Americans overall want limits on abortion. And as we protect life in law, we will also work to protect life in service.
We the undersigned believe in women so much that we have devoted our lives, our careers, our organizations, and our families to standing with women and their children, born and preborn, in fighting for their best good in all of our separate but united areas of influence.
This is not a new work or passion for us, though don’t expect to read much about our love for both mother and child in the mainstream media that repeatedly parrots the tired narrative that pro-life people only care about women when they are pregnant. For a fact check on that obvious falsehood, you need only to look at the list of signers to this letter, all of us working to help and support life from conception to natural death, and the amazing resources compiled on StandingWithYou.org.
We are standing together today to let women across America hear from us that they have support and community available, and we will be working together to bypass media filters to reach women in their moment of need. We owe this to women who carry within them world-changing potential and who make this nation great with the love and support they provide to the next generation.
We are Standing with You so you will never need stand alone. No matter what happens to Roe and the harmful institution of abortion it established, you have a friend in us. Please look to the list below and at StandingWithYou.org and let us know how we can help you.
Respectfully,
National Signers…
Kristan Hawkins, President, Students for Life/Students for Life Action;
Ben Watson, V.P. of Strategic Relationships, Human Coalition;
Allie Stuckey, Host of the Allie Stuckey Podcast;
James C. Dobson, Ph.D., Founder & President, Dr. James Dobson Family Institute;
Cissie Graham Lynch, Ministry Spokesperson, Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assoc;
Todd Chasteen, Vice President of Public Policy, General Counsel, Samaritan’s Purse;
Bob Vander Plaats, President and CEO, The FAMiLY LEADER;
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, (R-TX);
U.S. Representative Yvette Herrell, (R-NM-2);
Penny Nance, CEO and President, Concerned Women for America;
Tami Fitzgerald, Executive Director, North Carolina Values Coalition;
Mary Prudence Robertson, Host, EWTN Pro-Life Weekly;
Herb Geraghty, Executive Director, Rehumanize International;
Brian Gibson, Executive Director, Pro-Life Action Ministries;
Alex Clark, Host of The Spillover, Turning Point USA;
Kristen Day, Executive Director, Democrats For Life;
Donna Harrison M.D., Chief Executive Officer, American Assoc. of Pro-Life OB-GYNs (AAPLOG);
Catherine Glenn Foster, President & CEO, Americans United for Life;
Kelsey Hazzard, President of Secular Pro-Life;
Anna Visser, Director of Communication/Education for Right to Life of Michigan;
Michael Gonidakis, President, Ohio Right to Life;
Joshua Edmonds, Executive Director, Georgia Life Alliance;
Jason J. McGuire, President, New Yorker’s Family Research Foundation;
Victoria Cobb, President, The Family Foundation of Virginia;
Mary Szoch, Director of the Center for Human Dignity, Family Research Council;
Laura Bogley, JD, Director of Legislation, Maryland Right to Life;
Michael New, Research Associate, The Catholic University of America;
Anne O’Connor, J.D., NIFLA Vice President of Legal Affairs;
Eric J. Scheidler, Executive Director, Pro-Life Action League;
Andrea Trudden, Vice President of Communications & Marketing, Heartbeat International;
Laura Bogley, J.D., Director of Legislation, Maryland Right to Life;
Mike Fichter, President and CEO, Indiana Right to Life;
Roland Warren, President and CEO, Carenet;
Joshua Edmonds, Executive Director, Georgia Life Alliance;
Charlie Butts, Reporter, American Family Association;
Walter B. Hoye II, Founder and President, Issues4Life Foundation;
Dean Nelson, VP Government Relations, Human Coalition;
Melanie Israel, Policy Analyst, The Heritage Foundation.
