The Human Defense Initiative is doing something few others ever have: giving ordinary pro-life Millennials a platform.
This grassroots group, made up of dozens of passionate pro-lifers led by 19-year-old human rights activist Devin Sena, launched a brand new project Wednesday focusing on giving marginalized pro-life young people the voice they’ve rarely – if ever – truly had.
More than just another pro-life news site, the Human Defense Initiative aims at providing young pro-lifers around the world a platform to speak up for the unborn beyond just their own Facebook page or Twitter account, linking them in both in creativity and a common cause. Unlike many other pro-life media outlets, anyone who wishes to contribute their voice is encouraged to join. In fact, HDI already boasted more than 60 contributors before the site had even launched, ranging from high school and college students to young professionals in their 20s and 30s.
“Something the pro-life movement was seriously missing was an outlet,” Sena said in a press release following the site’s launch. “We’re the most pro-life generation in history, and we needed a place to make our voices — and the voices of the unborn — heard. This is what we’ve set out to create.”
Sena’s not wrong. Recent polls show a gradual but unmistakable shift in American attitudes toward abortion – particularly among younger generations.
A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that a majority 54 percent of Americans say that abortion “goes against my personal beliefs.” A January 2017 Quinnipiac poll found that 18-to-34-year-olds were more likely than almost any other age demographic to support a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, with a full 49 percent saying they’d support such a measure. Students at more than 200 high schools, colleges and universities recently walked out of class in protest of abortion.
And, while polls show a majority of American Millennials still say they support abortion rights in at least some cases, polls show that margin has shrunk consistently in recent years as science more and more affirms the humanity of the unborn.
As Michael New explained in the National Review:
The [General Social Survey] has asked the same six questions on abortion since the early 1970s. It asks whether abortion should be legal option if 1) the woman is raped, 2) there is a strong chance of a fetal defect, 3) the pregnancy poses a risk to the woman’s health, 4) the woman is low-income, 5) the woman is unmarried and does not want to marry the man, and 6) the woman is married and does not want more children.
During the 1970s and 1980s, young adults were more likely than other demographics to think abortion should be a legal option in each of these circumstances. Starting around 2000, though, there was a significant shift in the attitudes of young adults. The GSS surveys taken after 2000 consistently show that young adults are actually the age demographic most likely to oppose abortion as a legal option in nearly all of these circumstances.
But these pro-life voices are often ignored in favor of the pro-abortion agenda – especially when it comes to a mainstream media that routinely parrots Planned Parenthood talking points.
For example, major news networks covered the prominently pro-abortion Women’s March nearly seven times more than the 2018 March For Life, despite the pro-life event’s massive attendance of nearly 500,000 people. And, despite both movements being largely comprised of young people, the media likewise devoted 13 times more coverage to the anti-gun March For Our Lives than the annual pro-life rally.
But the numbers don’t lie: more than at any other time in recent history, the pro-life generation is stepping up. And it’s about time they had a voice.
*Disclaimer: this author volunteers as a contributor for the Human Defense Initiative.