Students for Life of America announced Friday a strategic effort to call on certain Senators to defund Planned Parenthood in response to the abortion organization’s $20 million campaign.
“We don’t need Planned Parenthood, but with fewer women choosing them all the time, they sure need our money,” Students for Life of America (SFLA) president Kristan Hawkins told The Daily Caller News Foundation Friday, explaining that the pro-life group is determined to effectively counter the abortion organization’s campaign with its own mission.
SFLA’s campaign targets West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Kentucky according to a Friday press release, and follows its series of national campus tours including #Sockit2PP and #WomenBetrayed.
The Students for Life (SFL) campaign will include calls and letters to Democratic and Republican senators alike. The group will also host events to spread awareness on school campuses, churches and at community centers.
“As mid-term elections get closer every day, the Pro-Life Generation will be energizing and mobilizing their Millennial peers to vote pro-life and put pressure on politicians of every party to defund Planned Parenthood,” Hawkins told TheDCNF.
SFL’s campaign comes after Planned Parenthood announced it will spend $20 million in states with upcoming Senate and governor races where Democrats are likely to win, in order to make its spending as effective as possible. “Reproductive rights and health is at stake in this country and has been at stake for years, but especially this year,” Planned Parenthood Action Fund Director Deirdre Schifeling said Thursday, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “We think this is critical, critical for protecting, and hopefully expanding, access to reproductive health care in the states,” Schifeling added.
Planned Parenthood will spend its campaign money in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the Post-Dispatch reported. We’re focusing on “races where we think we can be a decisive factor,” Schifeling explained. These eight states have 2018 Senate and governor races, and most are presidential swing states. (RELATED: Here’s Where Planned Parenthood Will Spend $20 Million It Made From Killing Unborn Babies)
RELATED:
Planned Parenthood’s $20 million campaign comes largely in response to a number of 2017 pro-life legislative successes. Nineteen states adopted 63 new restrictions on abortion access in 2017, according to a Jan. 2 Guttmacher Institute report. This is the largest number of enacted abortion restrictions in a year since 2013.
In addition to 2017-implemented restrictions, U.S. states have passed 401 anti-abortion policies that span back to January 2011, according to Guttmacher Institute. Lawmakers in 30 states have also presented abortion bans for consideration, and six states put abortion bans into law in 2017, Guttmacher reported.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.