Pro-life activist Kristan Hawkins’ journey to leading Students for Life of America started after she became involved in a crisis pregnancy center as a teenager — a moving experience that shaped her.
“It really inspired me in so many ways and in my pro-life activism, because I was raised in an evangelical home,” Hawkins said. “Entering that pregnancy center, starting to volunteer, meeting the women — I had a unique opportunity to become a counselor very early.”
Hawkins said she saw many women coming to the center who were desperate and had no one else to talk to — something that wasn’t lost on her.
Listen to her explain:
Years later, she’s leading Students for Life of America and starting meaningful conversations to try and help people properly understand the pro-life cause.
Many of Hawkins’ interactions with pro-choice students have gone viral as she makes compelling cases against abortion.
“I have a unique gift of not being afraid to have people scream at me — not be afraid to get yelled at on campus, and to say what I’m actually thinking,” she said. “And in this day and age on social media, that does really well.”
These videos help educate people about the issues surrounding abortion, and, according to Hawkins, have also helped save unborn babies’ lives.
“I’ve gotten to meet several babies that have been saved because their mom saw the video,” she said. “I just always think of it as such a great testament of hope how God can use all of us, and, whatever our skillset or strengths may be, He can put it to work for his kingdom.”
Many of these videos call out “illogical positions” and try to help people see more clearly.
But Hawkins isn’t only battling those on the pro-choice side, as she detailed the battle that often unfolds even within the pro-life movement – a back-and-forth over whether the key fight should be making abortion illegal or, instead, taking incremental steps to stop it.
Of particular note, some critics have said Hawkins is wrong to paint women as victims when it comes to abortion. Some said Hawkins even has “blood on her hands” for taking the positions she does on abortion.
“Our mission at Students For Life has to been abolish abortion since I launched in 2006,” she said, noting another organization has been focused on what she called “abolition.” “The concept was that they wanted to mimic the slavery abolitionists, that they wanted to … simply [try] to pass laws.”
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For these groups, there was a push to seek “the complete end of abortion and punishment for everyone involved in abortion.” Those in this camp, according to Hawkins, don’t believe someone is anti-abortion unless they agree with these parameters.
“Their viewpoint is that, unless you subscribe criminal punishment to mothers, you’ll never really end abortion,” she said.
Ultimately, Hawkins said she, too, wants to “end abortion as fast as humanly possible.” Yet she said the strategy of “blowing up” pro-life proposals that don’t include these parameters is problematic.
She believes the best way to make change is to move the needle — a strategy called incrementalism — even if it happens slower than one might want.
“If you were facing like a burning orphanage and there’s children burning alive and … you’re only one person and you can only go in, every reasonable person would say you would go in that orphanage and you would save as many children can,” Hawkins said. “You would call for help. You would call 911. You would ask people on the street, ‘Come in, join me, save all these babies!'”
She continued, “But … no reasonable person is going to stand on the street and be like, ‘Well, I can’t save all the children at the orphanage. So I’m going to let them all die. That is exactly what these folks are saying that we should do when it comes to legislation.”
As for the prospect of getting Americans on board with banning all abortions, Hawkins said “culturally, we’re not there.”
“It is completely out of the realm of possibility at this moment in 2025 America, except for a miracle from God Almighty, which is always possible, that you would see a complete end of all abortion,” she said. “Even if you pass a law ending all abortions … abortions would still happen because culture is not there. That is why we always say in the pro-life movement, ending abortion is twofold. It’s making abortion unavailable, illegal, putting the … abortion cartel out of business, but it’s also … for young women across America to start thinking of abortion as an antiquated, regressive idea.”
Hawkins also shared her biggest argument for not punishing women for abortion, noting the quickest wayto stop abortion, in her view, is to put the “abortion cartel out of business.” More specifically, she detailed some of the complexities involved in the issue.
“How are you going to prove every single woman knew she was killing her baby?” she said. “Are you going to go after every man, every deadbeat dad who gives her the money?”
Hawkins continued, “It becomes … this logistical nightmare that does not make sense. It’s not going to quickly eradicate the violence of abortion.”
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