Students for Life of America (SFLA) recently held their West Coast annual conference in San Fransisco, just one day after the Women’s March. Ironically, a pro-life march attended by the group also happened to be scheduled just hours before the pro-abortion women’s march. The two events didn’t experience too much overlap and everything transpired peacefully …well, almost peacefully. This happened at the D.C. march. Nothing says, “I support women” like a man snatching a woman’s property and tearing it to shreds with glee.

I was invited to moderate a panel at the one-day conference about messaging the prolife movement on college and high school campuses. We talked about taking advantage of the shifts in culture to tell compelling and inspiring stories. Panelists detailed strategies for presenting the prolife message to peers in academia.

Attendees were able to choose from the “College Track” or the “High School” track. Workshops on the science of life, pre and post pregnancy options were just a few of the options. Approximately 490 youth from across the country were in attendance,  impressive when you think about a young college student giving up a weekend to attend a prolife conference.

I was impressed by the energy and diversity of the crowd. As is common in the prolife movement there was a heavy Catholic presence, the Catholic church being at the forefront of life issues in America for many decades. However, there were also agnostics, Christians of all stripes and even an atheist contingent.

The attendees themselves were as about as racially diverse as one could hope to have at an event. All of them were excited and passionate about preserving the right to life and dignity for mothers and babies alike.

It was truly an inspiration to see.

Maddy from the University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse says she believes the prolife movement has gained steam among American youth in recent years because of technology and advancements in sciences.

Mark and Peter from Portland State University were among many young men attending in support of life and the women in their own lives. Peter spoke about not wanting to pretend to know what a woman who is scared and pregnant is going through but wanting those women to know they’re not alone and can find support among men like him.

And Mark, also from PSU ended with the perfect statement about why young men like him will never give up the defense of life. I’ll leave it to him to drop the mic.

“Our heads might be on the metaphorical chopping block but there’s babies whose heads are on the chopping block so we can’t back down.”