Pro-Life Students Walkout Wednesday, Demanding End to Abortion and Planned Parenthood Funding

By Liberty McArtor Published on April 11, 2018

Pro-life students from high schools and colleges around the nation are walking of school Wednesday. According to Students for Life of America (SFLA), a national pro-life nonprofit helping to organize the protest, over 300 schools planned to participate.

“We will no longer tolerate legal abortion in our nation, which has killed more than a fourth of our generation,” a statement on prolifewalkout.org says. The students are demanding that Washington, D.C. stop funding Planned Parenthood. Last year, Planned Parenthood performed 321,384 abortions. It receives around $500 million in taxpayer money annually. The massive budget bill President Donald Trump signed last month did not change that, despite Republicans’ promises to defund Planned Parenthood.

Headed by high school student Brandon Gillespie, the walkout was inspired by his history teacher, Julianne Benzel. Last month Rocklin High School in California placed Benzel on administrative leave. The move came after she discussed with students the nationwide walkout in support of gun control. She reportedly talked about whether schools would give the same kind of support to pro-life students.

As it turns out, the answer is no β€” at least at Rocklin.

“They are not giving me any accommodation at all, except for the district policy of not punish students for protesting,” Gillespie said in a SFLA press release Tuesday. “I asked for the same accommodation as the anti-gun protest.” That included flexible lesson planning from teachers and equipment used by students last month.

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The Life Legal Defense Foundation is helping students at Rocklin, SFLA announced. Attorneys sent a letter to the school district Monday outlining the students’ rights. Attorney Alexandra Snyder said Rocklin’s inconsistent treatment of the different student groups “violates the First Amendment.”

“It just confirms to me that there is a political double standard, at least in my school district,” Gillespie said. “But I’m still going to be out there.”

At 10:00 a.m. local time on Wednesday, pro-life students around the country will walk out of school for 17 minutes. First they will stand silently, to honor “the 10 children who will violently die during that time at a Planned Parenthood facility.” Then they will call for Planned Parenthood’s defunding. Students will finish with prayers for the end of legal abortion in America.

See videos and photos from the walkouts Wednesday on Student for Life of America’s Facebook page.

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