An Update From Bethany Janzen, Rocky Mountain Regional Coordinator, Students for Life of America:
There’s been so much going on in the Rocky Mountains the past few months! In the Springs, Students for Life groups at UCCS, The Classical Academy, PPCC, St. Mary’s High School, and Corpus Christi have been active on their campuses and in the community! Student leaders from CSUP (the group became official again last semester!), PPCC, and UCCS joined leaders from across Colorado and New Mexico to travel to D.C. for the March for Life and SFLA National Conference in January. In February, we organized testified and lobbied legislators to support the Life at Conception bill, Ultrasound bill, Dismemberment Abortion Ban, and Defunding Public Universities that Traffic Fetal Body Parts. Sadly, all of the bills died in committee, but the testimony of the students was still powerful (one of them was an adoptee who is the president at UNC SFL).
On February 16th, we also hosted the Women Betrayed Display at UCCS and this is the story of one of the women we spoke with (per my Facebook post): “I’m going to cry… I had an abortion.” The words weren’t said out of spite or anger, but out of deep grief and sadness. I had hardly started to explain the mental health effects of abortion to a student who had paused at the Women Betrayed Display debuting today in the Rocky Mountain Region at the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs. Soon her story unfolded. She was a college student when she got pregnant, and chose abortion – just four weeks along. She opted for the abortion pill. It was horrific. Nauseating, excruciatingly painful, and the bleeding lasted weeks. But that wasn’t the worst part. Her abortion led her into depression, causing her to drop out of college. She turned to heavy drinking.
Though she’s been through therapy now and has stopped drinking, she said that her friends don’t even know about her abortion. Then she remarked, “People can do what they want to do, but if someone were to ask me if she should get an abortion, I’d definitely tell her not to.”
I listened to her story and shared about the local Bridges of Hope Program at LifeNetwork and our Pregnant on Campus Initiative to help students stay in college and have their children. This is why I do what I do. Because abortion hurts women, both those born and preborn.
Last month the Students for Life group at the Community College of Aurora become official! We’ve also had two groups become official this month at public high schools, one near ABQ and one in Gunnison. Prayer Requests: We don’t have a club yet at Colorado College. We also need more students to step up to lead at PPCC. There is such a need there to help pregnant and parenting students!
Also, if you know of students who would like to start groups at any of the other high schools in town, please connect me with them!
Many more things have happened, but these are a few of the local highlights. ?
Bethany Janzen
Rocky Mountain Regional Coordinator
Students for Life of America
503-740-8938
bjanzen@studentsforlife.org
