Young pro-lifers in US speak out against social injustice of abortion

Young people campaigning against abortion in the US see their cause as a matter of social justice, a BBC report has said.

Journalists Rianna Croxford and Chelsea Bailey wrote that pro-lifers in the States born after 1996 – an age group known as Generation Z – are campaigning for the unborn on a platform of equal rights for everyone.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that nearly three-in-ten (28 per cent) Americans between the ages of 18 to 29 say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

Womb to tomb

Democrats For Life activist Jess Meeth told the BBC she supported life from “womb to tomb”, adding: “if we as a society respect life before birth, then we will respect life after birth”.

Noah Slayter, a 20-year-old member of the 120,000 strong Students for Life organisation, said that “the pro-life movement is just another aspect” of similar campaigns “focussed on helping people”.

And 24-year-old pregnancy crisis centre worker Julia DeLuce said: “After surviving being raped, I was able to relate to defenceless humans in the womb as abortion is violence committed by an older, more developed human against a younger one.”

All welcomed the recent US Supreme Court judgment on Roe v Wade, which returned responsibility for laws on abortion to elected representatives in the 50 states after finding there was no constitutional right to abortion.

‘Baby boxes’

Since the ruling, over a dozen states have passed safe haven laws permitting the installation of ‘baby boxes’ in designated public buildings.

Sponsored by the Safe Haven movement, ‘baby boxes’ provide a legal, secure and safe place for mothers in crisis to anonymously leave their newborn babies.

Once the baby is placed in the temperature controlled ‘cradle’, the access door is locked and an alarm sounds triggering a rapid response from specially trained staff working on-site.

Since the first ‘baby box’ was commissioned in 2016, the organisation reports that 21 babies have been given for adoption in this way.