Roger Marsh: Thank you for listening to Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh, and the program you're about to hear was recorded in January 2022 at the National March for Life in Washington, DC. Enjoy.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Welcome to another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Dr. Tim Clinton, president of the American Association of Christian Counselors, and your co-host here while we are here at the National Pro-life Summit in Washington, DC, put on every year by the March for Life weekend by Students for Life of America. And I have joining me on the program today, our dear friend, President of Students for Life of America, Kristan Hawkins. Kristan, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to hang with us, and man, is it exciting to see what's going on. I'm in the hallways in the hotel here. This place is packed. There are students from everywhere. The energy is palatable. I mean, it's amazing. It's a little different for some reason, Kristan, do you sense that?
Kristan Hawkins: Absolutely. I mean, those who've made the trek to Washington this year had to overcome a lot of probably obstacles. A lot of questions of, "Oh, my gosh, what are you going to do with the COVID protocols?" We have a lot of people here who aren't even legally allowed to sit down and have meals. So, we had a lot of students…
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yeah, the city is locked down. I mean, if you don't have a vaccination card, you can't do anything.
Kristan Hawkins: The hotel needs to give us a big thank you gift for filling up their hotel rooms again. But yeah, we had students last night, the only place they could eat were in the hallways. If they wanted to eat together, they had to order food and pizza in. So, these kids, they've overcome one, a lot to be here, and two, the reason they've done that is because of the Supreme Court decision that's coming down in June, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case. Despite everything they've thrown at us, we are now facing this second wave of the pro-life movement that's about to launch, which is a post-Roe America where the battle moves from here in Washington, here in the swamp, to every state capital.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yeah. And so the work is going to only escalate really.
Kristan Hawkins: That's right. That's what's keeping me up at night. Thank you, sir, for reminding me of that.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Kristan, give us a quick update and we want to take a little bit of a different turn, twist in this broadcast since we've had you on a couple of times, but give us an update on Students for Life, how many campuses, et cetera, what's happening on this?
Kristan Hawkins: Yeah, well, Students for Life is honored to serve on more than 1300 Students for Life groups. Actually 1,302, I was informed last night. Students for Life groups on college and high school campuses in all 50 states. We just reached over 131,000 young people trained since we launched 15 years ago. This past year, since we last spoke, we actually launched last March, our post-Roe plans at Students for Life. We've already launched it. It was a campaign called the Campaign for Abortion Free Cities, where we're working with young and old to mobilize on campuses and churches and in communities. We're actually going door to door.
It's funny, I get to go door to door and say, "I'm not here for a politician. I'm here to talk about the other thing you want to talk about, abortion. And did you know about all these non-violent alternatives that exist in your community?" And it is astounding more than 80% of the people we talk to in neighborhoods that surround abortion facilities do not know one, the violence that's happening inside the Planned Parenthoods and other facilities, but two, don't know who the pro-life Movement is and the non-violent resources that have been located in these cities for decades. And so it has been our honor to do this and to get pro-lifers, like I said, of all ages on board with this Campaign for Abortion Free Cities.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And I think I saw where, boy, a pretty big, significant number of people out there struggling with the abortion issue actually changed their mind on these college campuses because of the work that's being done in and through Students for Life.
Kristan Hawkins: Yeah, I mean this fall, we were averaging 11% minds changed when we were having in-person conversations. Through our Campaign for Abortion Free Cities, we're running tens of thousands of dollars in ads, digital ads to have conversations with young people. And we're averaging, depending on the city, between the 18 to 31% mind change. I'm a number person, so I'm always looking at the numbers. So I know we've had 17,682.5 conversions. I don't know where the 0.5 came in. So I'm always memorizing the numbers, but that's significant. And to think about we just released some polling at Students for Life that's very much in line with what we saw from the AP and Reuters this week, everyone kind of did their abortion polls.
And despite all of the scare tactics that you're hearing the day after the Dobbs v. Jackson oral arguments to the Supreme Court, a memo must have went out to all the mainstream media to start scaring every woman in America about adoption. There was all these negative stories about adoption being published. There was a bunch of stories published about children who had been diagnosed with adverse diagnosis in the womb and why eliminating children who might suffer is really the ultimate good that you can make. And so there's been a lot of fear-mongering happening, but even despite that, the polling we released just this week showed that Gen Z and Gen Y, so that's actually, believe it or not, and for good or for bad, they now make up the largest portion of our electorate. They are the most diverse, least-churched demographic in the voting bloc. And even with all that's going on, it came down to 50/50 support of Roe and disagreement with Roe.
We saw three-fourths come out and say that they don't agree with the current law of abortion on demand in all nine months, for whatever reason, wanting to see restrictions. When we asked about chemical abortion, we were winning at 60% levels on chemical abortion. Even this most liberal voting bloc disagrees with what's been happening with the push for chemical abortion, which is really the abortion industry's post-Roe blueprint.
Dr. Tim Clinton: What kind of opposition are your students up against? What do you guys up against on college campuses?
Kristan Hawkins: We have our good friends at Alliance Defending Freedom, Thomas Moore Legal Society. We are working with them all the time as kind of free legal counsel when our student groups are being discriminated against.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Well, I bet a lot of people try to shut them down.
Kristan Hawkins: Oh, yeah. Yeah. They tell them that you're not allowed to have a Students for Life group. We can have LGBTQIA++ groups here.
Dr. Tim Clinton: But no pro-life.
Kristan Hawkins: But no pro-life group because you harm the physical existence of people who disagree. I mean crazy accusations that get waged. The rise we've seen really in the past couple years has been shocking in terms of cyberbullying, where teachers and professors will get online to social media accounts of children, of high school students, and threaten them, the words that they call them. We actually had to hire our own full-time legal counsel just this past year, just to coordinate all the free legal groups and the cases that we have going on because as we get closer, and I think this is something that folks need to understand, while we're anxiously impatiently waiting for a victory at the Supreme Court in June, the other side dreads this day that we know is very near and they fear that day. And so their behavior is only going to get worse.
And in fact, I would sadly say that I expect that they'll be violence in the streets from the pro-abortion movement when Roe is reversed, because I mean, and you know this, Dr. Tim, there are a lot of very hurt people who've made decisions for abortion, who kind of knew in their gut what they were doing was wrong, but looked to the law as a teacher, had a friend, somebody at church that told them, well, you'll be okay, and they've always sort of regretted that abortion, but it was okay because it was legal. And the moment it's made illegal, when states move, swaths of states move to make abortion unavailable, you're going to have an epidemic of men and women who for the first time in their life are going to be forced to deal with the decision that they made.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You came out with a report in the end of 2021, that many Christian universities…
Kristan Hawkins: I knew we were going to talk about this. The first time I was on the radio with Dr. Dobson, he kept me on for a second show because of this topic.
Dr. Tim Clinton: ... had ties to Planned Parenthood.
Kristan Hawkins: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: I want you to talk about that and where'd it come from?
Kristan Hawkins: I know. It's shocking. I think as Christians, we tend to think that, oh, we're good. Our Christian schools are buttoned up. If I don't want my child exposed to the mainstream left, I'm going to send them to a Christian school. I would never ever assume that as a parent. I would look into what is the actual Christian environment on that campus. Some of the worst state schools in the country have probably the most robust Christian communities within them.
Dr. Tim Clinton: What's the culture you have?
Kristan Hawkins: Yeah, absolutely. So the Christian Schools Project, we researched all 784 Christian schools across the country, all denominations, Catholic, non-denominational, Protestant. We then looked for public relationships with Planned Parenthood. Now this isn't meaning what could be taught in classrooms that we can't track, but public relationships, so schools that were promoting Planned Parenthood through the campus health center, or giving school internship credit for students to promote Planned Parenthood. We found more than a hundred of these 784 schools actually had a public relationship with Planned Parenthood.
So, we did the Christian thing, we went to the schools in private, and we said, "As fellow believers, we have found this. We want you to fix this. You need to terminate your relationship with Planned Parenthood right now." Several schools did actually, over 40 schools did that. So today we are left with a little over and I don't want to give you the exact number because it does change by the week, but it's a little over 60 Christian universities still have a public relationship with Planned Parenthood after we've gone to them three times asking them to rescind the relationship. And so we actually put a map up on Students for Life's website, studentsforlife.org/christianschools. And you can go and find those 60 schools and personally email and call them. They love getting phone calls. It's their favorite thing.
Dr. Tim Clinton: It's just sobering to me to think about we're even having this kind of a conversation. But I want to go back to the students. You've spent a lot of years, time with them, come let us reason together. The conversation pieces at that level, and a lot of moms and dads listening right now, and they want to figure out how to have meaningful conversations with their children, what are the buzz points? What are the one or two or three conversations that just really click with them?
Kristan Hawkins: Yeah. Well, I think one, keep the main thing, the main thing. Always highlight the humanity of that child, right? That what is in inside of her is a unique, whole living human being. It's never existed before. It will never exist again. It has a unique genetic code. And abortion is really the stronger choosing self over weaker. So talk about the humanity of the child. But that's not enough. If you've got, especially a young person who's going to a public school, it's coming back asking questions, they're going to have a lot of rebuttals to that, of, well, okay, well maybe it's a child, but it doesn't necessarily mean the child should have the right, or what about the mom's rights? The mom is here, the mom has more rights, or the child may suffer.
And so, I think the other thing that we often see that really starts to kind of click in students' minds is we were raised in my generation, Gen Y, I'm an older Gen Y, but Gen Y and Gen Z with the belief that women can achieve anything. That full women's power. Girl power, right? Like we can do whatever we set our minds to. And I fully believe that because we are the stronger sex, no offense, sorry. I mean we gestate human beings inside of us for gosh sakes, like, okay. But we were raised with this girl power, but then the message they get from the abortion industry is literally the counter of that, of, oh, yes, you're a strong woman, hear me roar. Except when you become pregnant and you're a student and you're parenting, you can't actually do that. You're not strong enough to do that. It's completely counter to that.
So, when we point out that a logical position, we point out the hypocrisy of the "women's rights movement," that really starts to make sense in young people's minds. And then the third thing I would say is point out how much we do, because what we've seen time and time again on campuses is people won't say that they're pro-life, they'll support abortion even though despite that icky feeling they have in their gut about it because they don't know who we are in the pro-life movement. More than 80% of the neighbors that we knock on doors of don't know. But once they know us, it's the belong, believe, behave evangelization method. Once they know us, they're going to start listening to the arguments that we have. But we first have to show them who we are as pro-lifers.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Kristan, what do we need to do? How do we need to approach that? Any thoughts related to that?
Kristan Hawkins: Yeah. One, join our Campaign for Abortion Free Cities because I mean, that's what we're trying to do is be there, to have already knocked on her door, for her to already have seen a bumper sticker or a yard sign with our Standing With You website, or to see on her social media when she searches the word abortion, right, she pops up an ad taking her to a free online chat, whether our friends-
Dr. Tim Clinton: How critical is that?
Kristan Hawkins: You're right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: That's everything.
Kristan Hawkins: Yeah. You have to be there. If we're on campuses, we talk about leaving signs of hope because we realize on campus it's very hard to run digital ads and we can't be there in every dorm room when she's taking a pregnancy test. But we can work with the campus health center to make sure the resources from the non-violent pregnancy center down the street are available. We can make sure that on our campus that we've changed our ... We have a pregnant and parenting student bill of rights. We get that in the handbook. And that's what we have to be doing in our communities. Not a once a year march for life or a, oh, this October is "Respect Life Month."
Dr. Tim Clinton: This is an everyday issue, man. We got to go to war right now, every day,
Kristan Hawkins: Every day. Every Sunday in your church bulletin, for example, is there a resource for a pregnant and parenting person? So a young woman or a young man who's sitting there in the pews, who's going through this moment of crisis, so you don't know, is there a sign of hope for them? When you're growing up there was like this back bulletin board, that's where like they had all the outreach, is there a constant flyer, a tear off flyer for the pregnancy center?
I mean, it has to be something that is ingrained in your church culture. It has to be something that you constantly do. I mean, like I literally have in my pocket, I think, business cards with a website we created for Students for Life where all the students here, it's like 12 boxes. I got so sick of students going, "What more do I do?" I'm like here, here's your 12 boxes. You can pick a box and sign up and do something right now. But do you have that? Do you have that business card in your pocket for the local pregnancy center? My other thing is when I go to like a Walgreens and where they sell condoms and Plan B, I'll see that some pro-lifer has been there first and they'll put like a business card for a pregnancy center. I'm like, yes, who is that person? I want to be their best friend.
Dr. Tim Clinton: This whole thing changed for me, I remember the day. I was seated at a table in my office and my phone rings, and someone that I care about on the line just said, and she's crying, she says, "We're on our way to a clinic and she is going to have an abortion. And I just said we're going to call Tim. And here you talk to her." That was a life-changing moment for me. It made all this stuff real. And so we're in a battle. We got work to do You guys are getting it done. You're impacting today's generations. It's a big deal. What's ahead? You guys don't mess around. I mean, you guys, you flat get after it. You have to because these kids are different. But they got fire in them. But you've got to be out in front. Yeah. Where do you see it going, and then I want to just talk a little bit about you and your family before we go.
Kristan Hawkins: Yeah. We're very much excited and working towards that post-Roe day. We anticipate in the pro-life movement of victory in June. But even if that victory doesn't come, our plans actually don't change. And one of the things that I've been ... And I actually called out and say in my speech, after I gave everybody a history lesson about the Founding Fathers. All the dorks in the audience like me were super excited. The rest of them were like, I didn't know, I went to history class. It was funny because Dr. Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage was lecturing when they came up and he is actually a history professor. So they're getting double doses today.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Wow.
Kristan Hawkins: But the challenge I gave to them was pay attention to what the abortion industry is doing. They have moved rapidly during COVID to advanced chemical abortion.
Dr. Tim Clinton: They sure have. The mail, you can get in the mail.
Kristan Hawkins: Yes. And so, this is their post-Roe plan. Because you may think you live in a red state. Oh, we're good. I live in Mississippi. I live in Arkansas. No one here is going to be able to have abortion. My state already has a law in place that's going to make abortion illegal. I know a pregnancy center down the street. Okay, fine. What are you going to do when a pharmacist in California ships your daughter a chemical abortion pill and no one knows?
Dr. Tim Clinton: No one knows.
Kristan Hawkins: And that's exactly what the abortion industry has been using and exploiting the COVID crisis for, their gain. And so, we created a docuseries with our friends at Heartbeat International, it's called, thisischemicalabortion.com. And it's six very short social media episodes with physicians who've been reversing. They can actually reverse this chemical abortion pill. Women who've taken this drug to talk about how painful and deadly it is. It's fascinating. Even pro-choice students, when you have conversations with them about chemical abortion are aghast to learn that the Biden administration because of the abortion lobby has now removed all safety regulations on this drug. And if women, and they are, since December, can be administered this drug at home without ever confirming she's pregnant, not even confirming she doesn't have an ectopic pregnancy, which can kill her. The side effects of chemical abortion drugs are bleeding, heavy cramping, fever. The side effect of an ectopic pregnancy, same exact thing. So she won't know if her fallopian tube is about to rupture, if she's about to start internally bleeding.
The FDA removed the regulation that women get a blood test. The reason why women were having to get and should get blood tests before, and if you're pregnant and you go to your OBGYN, you have to get a blood test. One of the first things they're checking for is you're RH negative status. And even if you deliver, or if you have a miscarriage, you always if your Rh negative have to get this RhoGAM shot. Why? Because if you don't, your bloodstream will build up antibodies from your first child that will never allow you to carry another child to term again.
Dr. Tim Clinton: What a nightmare.
Kristan Hawkins: Effectively, it renders you infertile. Now, according to the FDA, you don't even have to give her a blood test. So if 15% of the population is Rh negative, so you are going to have women who have these abortions, have no idea they're Rh negative, and never will be able to have children again. And even pro-choice people are aghast.
Dr. Tim Clinton: We need to get that message out.
Kristan Hawkins: Yes, we have to.
Dr. Tim Clinton: What a nightmare.
Kristan Hawkins: And the majority of Christians that I talk to, I mean, I am like the least popular person at dinner parties because I'm always talking about faith and abortion. And every conversation I've had in the past six months when I'm at these parties always comes back to chemical abortion. And every time I get a question of, "Oh, isn't that just a Plan B?" No. Chemical abortion is not Plan B. Chemical abortion's intent is to end the life of a child up until about 12 weeks of pregnancy. And we know it actually can be even further. Plan B could and may end the life of a human child. It's about 11 times more powerful than the normal birth control pill. It can be taken three days after unprotected sex. But the intention isn't to end a life of a child, the intention is to stop the ovary from releasing the egg so no conception actually occurs. This is fundamentally different.
Dr. Tim Clinton: A lot of parents, maybe some students listening right now, where can they learn more about Students for Life of America or maybe how to get involved?
Kristan Hawkins: You can go to studentsforlife.org and you can sign right up. If you want to know exactly where to go and you want to learn more about the movement and the different niches within the movement, where you can serve, go to studentsforlife.org/fight. If you heard about my abortion free cities campaign, we have free church kits and we even have sample talking points for how to convince your pastor to actually talk about this and sample sermons.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Here we go.
Kristan Hawkins: So you can go to abortionfreecities.org, and sign for your free church kit, too.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Love that. Kristan, we hear at Family Talk love you, your family. In the past, you've told us about your two kiddos, Gunner and Gracie. They have cystic fibrosis. I just wanted to check in with you. Can you give us an update on your family and your kids' health?
Kristan Hawkins: Yeah, Gunner's doing well. He developed cystic fibrosis, really diabetes this year. So my almost teenager, my little boy who's afraid of needles has had to get very strong this year. Gracie's doing well. They're both benefiting from a brand new drug that is doing wonders. My third son who does not have cystic fibrosis was just actually diagnosed, and you don't even know this, with a disease called hereditary spastic paraplegia. And it's affecting his walking. And we've been told that he may, at one point in his life, not have the ability to walk. And so, we've had some big challenges in the Hawkins family this year, but we are stronger than ever. We actually, and this is going to shock a lot of people, it certainly did my parents, we actually sold our home and we are living full-time in a fifth-wheel travel trailer.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Are you?
Kristan Hawkins: Yes, to stay together. I have spent way too many nights alone in hotel rooms spreading the word about Students for Life, raising up this pro-life generation. I've lost a lot of time with my kids. And so one of the things that we learned during COVID was we did not want to be apart anymore. So for as long as my husband can stand it, we are towing our home behind us as mom travels across the country. It's actually the great post-Roe v. Wade setup because wherever there's a state battle, you can bet the Hawkins family will be there. We're just going to roll into town, just find me a campground. I keep trying to convince my husband to let me wrap this travel trailer, this fifth wheel trailer, because we're about as big as a semi-truck. I mean, that's a great advertisement.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Really.
Kristan Hawkins: He said he doesn't want to be having debates about abortion when he's trying to hook up with water and electricity at six in the morning at a campground.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Well, we love and respect that kind of a decision. And we will, hey, we'll pray for you. We'll ask our listeners to pray for you and the amazing work at Students for Life of America.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Hey, on behalf of Dr. Dobson, his wife, Shirley, the entire team here, we tip the hat to you and pray that God will continue that great work in and through you and your family. Kristan, thank you for joining us.
Kristan Hawkins: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Tim Clinton: An important and timely update from our friend, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America. I'm Dr. Tim Clinton. If you've missed any of today's broadcast or you'd like to learn more about Kristan Hawkins or Students for Life of America, visit drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. That's drjamesdobson.org/familytalk, or call us toll-free at (877) 732-6825. And when you reach out, request a CD copy of today's program to share with someone who might want to learn more about the pro-life movement.
A decision from the United States Supreme Court on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health case out of Mississippi could be announced any day now and it could be a game-changer for those of us who are fighting for life. Are you ready to defend life and take your stance in your state? I sure hope so. We've got good news about life and helping women. The pro-life movement is winning. Let's get it out to our circle of influence.
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