Ep.113 Most Dangerous Conversation in America w/ Kristan Hawkins

In this podcast episode, we interview Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action, about her work building and supporting over 1,600 pro-life student groups and training nearly a quarter million young people. Hawkins discusses serving on Trump’s 2016 Pro-Life Advisory Council, her view of his pro-life record, and why she believes Planned Parenthood would expand anywhere it could, citing founder Margaret Sanger’s beliefs. She talks about campus debates, viral videosShe emphasizes focusing on ending abortion by targeting the industry while changing hearts and minds, and encourages young conservatives/Gen Alpha to build large platforms to speak to their generation, directing viewers to studentsforlife.org to start or join groups and get trained. #ProgrammingLionsPodcast 

IG: kristanmercerhawkins

Web:  Studentsforlife.org 

Shop GSD Affiliates:

🪥🦓 Zebra: https://yayzebra.com/?dt_id=2516008

😴⚕️USA Medical: https://usamedical.com/en/?ref=80

00:00 Meet Kristan

00:41 Trump’s Pro-Life Advisory Council 

01:16 Planned Parenthood

03:21 Campus debates

04:38 Exceptions

05:56 Do these conversations work?

08:46 Abortion trends after Roe

10:19 Handling hate

12:48 Policy strategy

13:39 Carrot vs. stick

16:36 Students for Life

Transcript

Kristin_Hawkins-GSD-webcam-00h_00m_00s_464ms-StreamYard 0:00

Welcome back to the Programming Alliance podcast. Today we have Kristan Hawkins, and first of all, can I just get to know more about you? Yes, I'm Kristen. I am the President of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action. I'm a mom of four and I have this amazing opportunity to go to college and high school campuses and start pro-life groups. And today I'm honored to say we serve more than 1600 groups across the country. We've trained wow, uh, nearly a quarter of a million young people who are now graduates and alumni to speak truth. About the violence of abortion and to work to make abortion a thing of the past. I have a question. Trump's Pro-Life Advisory Council. Yep. Can you tell me more about that? Yeah. I served in the President's Advisory Council in 2016, uh, when he was trying to build a coalition of folks, uh, around him and his campaign. He fulfilled many of the promises he made in that campaign. I was sad to see in 2020. In 2024, he didn't have a pro-life counsel. But he continues to be on record the most pro-life present we've ever had in terms of his actions. Why do you think people aren't starting, like for example, planned Parenthood in places like Gaza? In Gaza? Yeah, I think if Planned Parenthood had the chance to open an abortion facility in Gaza, they would 100% open an abortion facility in Gaza. Why? Because they believe and they want to see more humans be aborted. And if you look at Planned Parenthood's founding planned parent's founder, Margaret Sanger believed that certain quote, unfit or undesirable or IMB bustle, people should not have the right to reproduce. So if Planned Parenthood could start an abortion IL Gaza, I 100% believe they would do. Yeah, that's, uh, we, we often wonder about this too, because the, one of the common sort of defenses of abortion is, oh, well, kids are expensive to raise. And of course, in America, we have the highest standard of living of any sort of country in the world. And then you look at other countries that are like, their top level of living is like lower than our lowest standard of living. And yet you don't see Planned Parenthood like really thriving in those places. No, and, and Planned Parenthood isn't thriving in states that are the most pro-family either. Right? Right. They're thriving in places and actually, I can't even say where they're thriving because you, you would think that you, that they would be thriving in New York City and Philadelphia where you have a high number of young women who are unmarried. Do you know why kids? But they actually shut down their facilities there. Wow. Majority of their facilities are actually being shut down this year. And Democrat lose states where abortions still legal or they're still getting taxpayers state taxpayer funding. So they always kind of try to cry. Woe is me Republican policies, or forcing us to shut down our claim. The most part from the 50 plus facilities that they have announced, they're shutting down since January 1st. Yeah. They've been in Democrat states, not Republican states. Wow. That I did not know that. Fun fact. Yeah, I did not know that. That's actually surprising it, you know? Yeah. I gotta say like, it's amazing. I've seen so many clips of you over the years debating with people on college campuses and they're like, this doesn't happen. This doesn't happen. And then you literally get on the phone, you call Planned Parenthood, and they're like, yo, 34 weeks. No problem. We'll get you in. Oh yeah. No. And my favorite one was one time I called and they were like, planned Parenthood gives diapers. And I was like, no, they don't. That's pregnancy resource centers. Right. And I called them and the lady was just like, why not? Right. You know, she like immediately. And that's the thing, when you think about debating on campuses with people who are pro-abortion, they, they wanna claim that you're a liar, you prove them wrong, and then they move on to rape or foster care. Mm-hmm. I mean, there's nothing only like. Five arguments that they use to justify Right. This tyrannical extremist position that they, that they, they have. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we, we have that in our threads'cause we've put out posts about Yeah. Just the reality of abortion and the numbers on, in fact, we put out maybe a week ago, will Yeah. Where you just put out the numbers on it. Oh yeah. Is the leading cause of death in the country, which it is if you consider life begins a conception. So we put that out and a lot of people came back with, well, what if you're griped. And like, and so then even if you grant them that argument, then, then they're, they still don't agree. So it's funny that that's what they start with, isn't it? Yeah. No, they, they always try out a woman who's experienced the most horrific assault Yeah. To justify their extremist position. Yeah. And I often say, you know, I, I'll say on campuses, listen, I will, I'm going to answer your question, but I first wanna know, are you genuinely asking this question? Right. Or are you trying to get me. Because what, most of the time when I'm being asked that question, it is not because they actually care about a woman who's been assaulted in the worst way possible. Right. What they're trying to do is they think that this is like their silver bullet to justify Yeah. A hundred percent abortions. But really what they're doing is they're callously trotting out a woman in order to justify their extremism. Yeah. And it's so funny'cause I'll often say, you know, listen, I'm gonna answer your question, but even, let's just pretend for a second. One second. I agree with you. Mm-hmm. Abortion cases of rape fine. Right? Would you agree with me that the 99, 90 8% of abortions that aren't for that case should be abolished? Righthand? I've only ever had one student say yes. And so then I say, well, why did you try out this? Exception. Yeah. To justify all abortions, right? Yeah. Don't you feel a little bad about that? Yeah. Sus do you think you, you very sus, do you like really think that you change people's minds? I know. I changed people's minds, like, yeah, I met a woman today who was interviewing me. Who came up to me and said, I changed your mind on abortion and cases of rape. I changed your mind on I Really? Wow. Do pe like we d Yeah. Do people like in like, I don't know, a feed or something, say like, you change, change, people DM him? Yeah. I have former abortion facility workers who will DM me. I've met babies, actually I'm late in delivering two Christmas gifts to babies who. We're saved because their mother stumbled upon one of my videos on YouTube. Wow. There's babies named after me. Wow. Wow. Um, so absolutely. I think people kind of say, oh, well, you know, college campuses and people are screaming at you, you're not gonna change your mind. You're right. If someone comes up to me and is screaming at me, I'm probably not gonna change your mind.'cause they already hate me. Right. Yeah. And if you have to kind of like somebody to kind of listen to the points they're actually making mm-hmm. But what you don't see and what, what you can't see on social media. Is when that person comes up to screaming at me, there's a hundred people watching the conversation. Yeah. Me responding with reason, me responding calmly, repeating back the insane things that they say that don't make sense. Mm-hmm. Changes mind. I have the best seat in the house because I get to kind of see the metaphoric light bulb going off in the viewer's minds, and that's just what I see on campuses. Online. So we change about 18% of the minds of people we reach on campus who are pro-choice. Online. It's 25% plus because online it's easier to change your mind. Because online, you don't have to hate me. You don't have to admit in person that you were wrong because we, we hate to admit to our parents, to our spouses. I can definitely agree. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Just my, you're married, my friend. Oh, no, that's, it is incredible that you get feedback like that so you can sort of close the loop in terms. The effort you make is having returns. And of course this is like life and and future and opportunity for people and humans and so it's gotta feel incredibly rewarding to have that happen. It is, it is. And that's why I think a lot of people always ask me like, how can you go on campuses and, and deal with these people yelling at you? It is like, it's easy because I know I'm changing minds of Yeah. You know, even though I can't see the people'cause they're on social media. They're the more insane they act towards me. Yeah. The more views that video gets.'cause sadly, yeah. The views of rational comms discussions don't ever usually go very far. Yeah. We found that too. So the more insane people that come up to me yell at me, I get more excited to meet them because I know they're letting me change my minds because truth is on my side. I don't have to be a genius. All I have to do is illuminate their insane arguments. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. How, how about so you mentioned that there are some, some planned parenthood, let's say brick and mortar is starting to break down in, in, in blue states and other areas. How about overall numbers on abortion? I'm, I'm not super close to this number, but are they trending down, up, like steady? What, what does that look like? It's very hard to give you an accurate number because we don't have a national abortion reporting. Planned Parenthood is always lobbied against it. In red states, abortions are down that we know of. Okay. But they're still happening because chemical abortion pills are legally flowing into those states. Right. They're not being tracked. Yeah. Yeah. I would say abortion numbers are roughly around the same. Yeah. Because of chemical abortion pills. The abortion lobby knew that ROE was going to fall. Okay. If you listen to the Supreme Court arguments that were made on December 1st, 2021, you knew that they had no case. So what happened is that December, the Biden administration moved quickly to deregulate chemical abortion. Hmm. They had their DOJ issue, a memo Say, yes, we know a federal law called the Comstock Act, which bans the mailing of abortion material. But don't worry, abortion industry. Mm-hmm. We're not gonna force the Comstock Act. Hell, it's still not being enforced today with the Trump DOJ. Yeah. So they moved so fast to change the nature of their industry. I think that was one of the criticisms I had of, of the pro-life movement and the conservative movement was people were asleep at the wheel. We obviously have a lot of hate online because we put out very edgy posts. Okay. But I cannot imagine because of your size, what the hate is like. So can you maybe tell us a little bit about that? Like what's it like. I mean the hate from the other side is it is what it is, right? You have wounded people who are post-abortive, so anyone telling them that abortion wrong is an offense against them and they don't know how to respond'cause they haven't healed from the abortion that they had 30, 40 years ago. I've lost a lot of weight in the past year and a half. So I used to get all these comments about how I looked and how fat I was. Yeah. Now they can't do that. So they have to find something else. Right. Uh, it's really funny to see them. Like, yeah. Debating that to me. The hate that I, I take the most offense at, I mean if you hate me'cause I'm advocating for saving the life of babies. Screw you. Like I don't really care. Right, right. You think it's okay to kill innocent babies? Like why would I care with anything you have to say your moral compass is obviously way off pretty low. Yeah. I think the thing that bothers me the most, like even here we have like these Nick Fuentes people, on the anti-abortion, right, that they call themselves abolitionists. They're kind of like pro prosecution, uhhuh. Those people, I mean, they're like been going around. Every time I go places, they pass out these flyers. Like pro-lifers are killing pro-life law, like anti-abortion laws, and they are very angry people. They feel that a pro-life law that doesn't put women in jail for having abortion shouldn't be passed, should be struck down, isn't just. So I haven't seen this. So maybe you can expand. They expand on this. They're seen them? No, they're going booth to booth. This is, this is part of the Fuentes like model or it, it, they're, they're not, they are the Nick Fuentes of the anti-abortion world. I think that was something that Ben Shapiro did really well just during his. Speech at, you know, the opening at Fest was, you talked about the responsibility influencers have Yeah. To call out when things are wrong. Even if, when these people are anti-abortion, they agree abortion kills an innocent child named God, but they think. That anything that tries to end abortion but doesn't put mothers in jail mm-hmm. Is evil and should be killed. So they actually protest me. I'm like their public enemy, number one. They, they protested me on every college campus Really? I spoke at this year. That's insane. That shocks me. It is insane. So what, what is it that they want to do? So like normal people, it's insane. They want to pro, they want to more heavily prosecute people who perform abortions or No, no, no, no. Have them. My bills at Student Wife Action. Always have either criminal or civil punishment for abortionists in it. Okay. Because I do think you have to take out the industry. Right, right, right. Take out the supply. Yes. As well as taking out the demand. They hate my bills. They actually killed my bill in Oklahoma this year. Would allow people to sue people who ship chemical abortions and pills into the state. They killed my bill because it didn't put women in jail who ordered the abortions. They wanna put women in jail. Yes. Interesting. It's, that's strange. And it to somebody who's very nascent in the pro-life movement who's just learned about the divine work, you're like, oh yeah, let's put everybody in jail. Mm-hmm. But you have to think about what is the goal of our movement? Our goal of our movement is to stop the killing of babies. Yes. And I like taking the Jesus approach. You know what, the woman in Wow. When he was like, he, you know. I was just gonna say like, I think the, the more effective approach is to bring people to a more positive message of Jesus or life, or like, how wonderful, and I can say this as a proud parent of two boys here mm-hmm. That when you have a child, it just infinitely makes your life better. Sure. Better human. Instantly. Yes. It's unbelievable. And so. The more that that message can get out there where people are excited or maybe they didn't plan on it, but they're like, it's gonna be okay. Like, this is still gonna be awesome. I know. Just life doesn't is gonna be awesome. Doesn't seem like that right now. Doesn't, it's gonna be different. Yes. And you'll have bags under your eyes, but your life will be awesome. Right. Your life will be awesome. Like you figure things out. And so I think, yeah, those messages can get out. It can save people, make them feel more positive about it other than like, it's. I think what you're describing is carrot and stick. Like your method is carrot and the other method is more stick. Yeah. I mean, this is what was so great in the genius of Charlie, right? You'd go to campuses, you'd make these viral videos. They would enable more students to get involved, but he also wanted to use his platform not to just get clicks and get more money because he got more engagement or more hate comments, right? Mm-hmm. He wanted to elect champions who are gonna put in policies. In place to save our country. Yeah. And when you start doing, this is what Ben was talking about yesterday. You have a lot of people on the right now that like wanna say the most outlandish things to get the most hate, not because it's going bring us to a better electoral outcome. In fact, they're, it's gonna turn people off from even looking at conservatives. Right? Yeah, we can see that. Yeah. Or even voting for conservatives, but they don't care because they're getting money from the clicks. Yeah. It's the grift. The grift. Yeah. It's sad to see this happen. Mm-hmm. I mean, I'm like, either you're making money off of this or you're applying for the abortion industry. Like Yeah, there's one of the two because it's absolutely like, they're like literally here and I'm like, what are we doing? Mm-hmm. And that's why I, I appreciate what Ben was saying'cause I love having ideological debates on the right. We can obviously debate about different policies. But at some point we have to say no, that's not us. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Our, our movement's about love and many women who've had abortions are themselves second victims of abortion. Not all women. Yeah. But the coercion stats are over 70% of women who had abortion say they feel a men's pressure to have abortion. Right. So are they truly always really at fault? I mean, they have to repent for that sin for sure. Right. They committed the sin, but are is putting them in jail going to be the solution to the problem we have? The problem we have is people are killing babies. I want there to be no abortionists. Mm-hmm. I want there to be no abortion, so I don't want chemical abortion pills to be shipped. I don't want them to be made. Right. I want take out the industry of abortion while trying to change people's hearts and minds. Right, right. Yeah. Makes sense. Staying into jail seems kind of. Harsh. Yeah. So it would make more sense to kinda like, just like take the problem out from under them. How about this, we'll wrap up last question, Kristen, which is, we as a young conservative. Channel, couple of young men what do you think we can do to help in the movement towards all these goals that we're unanimously talking about? Question is what's Gen Alpha? You guys have to be the spokesperson for Gen Alpha, right? You gotta speak to your generation. Every generation. I'm Gen Y, I speak to Gen Z. I think Gen Z likes me better than Gen Y. The snowflakes aren't a big fan of. Want direct people. But what's Jen Alpha? You all need to have your finger on your pulse of what your generation, how they view these issues, and have the biggest and loudest platform you ha can have to speak truth before Planned Parenthood, before the abortion industry reaches you. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. And then, um, before we log off, where can people find you? Yeah, you can go to students for life.org. And that's where you'll get all the information, where you get plugged in to start students life group in middle school, homeschool high school, college, med law school. We wanna help you. We'll send you out to state capitals, we'll train you because we really see ourselves as this talent pipeline of the movement. So no matter where you kind of wanna plug in to save lives, we'll support you in that mission. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.