March for Life scholarship info.

Yes, the $160 cost of attending this January’s March for Life is down
almost $100 from last year. But we recognize that $160 is still a lot of
money, especially for a college student. So here's your chance to reduce
the amount you pay even further.

Thanks to the generosity of St. Thomas Catholic Church, this year SFL is
able to give out $50 scholarships to up to four individual March-goers. To
be considered for the scholarship, interested persons need to write a
brief, 1-2 page response on the following topic.

Prompt: What do you hope to get out of attending this year's March for
Life?

Due: Essays must be emailed to umstudentsforlife@gmail.com by 12:00pm on Monday,
November 28th. Scholarship recipients will be announced that evening at the
meeting.

Special Note: In order to ensure that judging is as objective as possible,
please DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE ESSAY!!! Instead,
include your name and email in a SEPERATE PAGE AT THE VERY END OF THE
ESSAY!

Finally, please note that it is certainly to everyone's advantage to submit
at least something. We have four scholarships to give away, so even those
who don't consider essay-writing a strongpoint could win by default! Let me know if you have any questions.

March for Life money due next Monday!!!

Barring the end of the world, exactly two months from now 40 SFLers will be
in Washington D.C. with 400,000+ other pro-lifers getting ready to march on
the National Mall. That's right, the annual March for Life is approaching,
and approaching fast!

To that end, this is just a reminder that the payment for the March is due
by NEXT MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28th. The cost this year is $160 (down from last
year's $240). If you are planning on going on the March, We will need this
full amount no later than next Monday's meeting in the Union. Checks may be
made out to "Students for Life at the University of Michigan." We have 40
spots available.

Let me know if you have any questions. Also, anyone who is interested but
who cannot, for one reason or another, make the payment deadline should
contact us ASAP.

Blog surpasses 1,000 hits! When will the petition do the same?

Right now it's looking like it may be quite awhile, as we currently have only have 93 signers. Have you signed the petition yet?

Have you signed the petition yet?

The U currently mandates that international undergraduate students purchase health care that includes abortion coverage. Yes, you read that correctly.

If this makes you unhappy, which it should, help put an end to it by signing our petition! Anyone with a UMich uniquename can sign. You do not need to be an international student. The petition text states as follows:

The University should offer a separate insurance plan for international students so that these students will not be required to fund abortions. In this new insurance plan, students will be able to select whether or not to fund abortions; those who choose not to pay for abortions will allow the money that would have gone to abortions to be distributed in other areas covered by the insurance plan.

This petition isn't just for pro-lifers. It's for anyone who wants the right to choose what he/she does with his/her own...money.

Yes, on this issue SFL is pro-choice.

Backwards, Medieval, anti-Science Pro-Lifers...

...present medical evidence that life begins at conception. Surely the other side pointed out that their argument was false and lacked any proper scientific evidence to support it? Nope. Instead they got a friendly reminder from Advocates for Choice that "science cannot be applied to my body". I'll have to remember that one the next time I'm in the Emergency Room.

Abortion doesn't empower women

From the Op-Ed section of the Michigan Daily, by our own Elise Aikman!

Great job, Elise!

VIEWPOINT: ABORTION DOESN'T EMPOWER WOMEN
By Elise Aikman

I participated in an abortion debate held by the Michigan Political Union last Monday. Several times throughout the event, students raised concern about the impact of abortion bans on the poor. Legalizing abortion, they argued, not only spares children from suffering in dire poverty, but can also empower women to break through the poverty cycle.

The impoverished conditions, under which the majority of the world’s population lives, are truly appalling. However, I believe the suggestion that legalizing abortion should play a part in reducing poverty is gravely flawed for two reasons. First, it is inappropriate to solve societal problems by eliminating the people affected. We don’t fight malaria by killing those with malarial infections. Similarly, we shouldn’t fight poverty by aborting the poor. Secondly, there is no evidence that legalizing abortion helps women break through poverty. True women’s empowerment requires education, material resources and personal support — not abortion.

One reason given for legalizing abortion in underdeveloped countries is that abortion spares children from a life of poverty and suffering. Easing suffering is a commendable goal, and one that I share, but when the desire to prevent suffering leads us to eliminate those who will suffer, we commit a grave error.

Last summer, I visited Kenya and Uganda. There I saw village after village of malnourished children. I mention this because I want to make it clear that in no way do I wish to trivialize the suffering of billions of people. On the contrary, the severity and extent of the extreme poverty those children live in overwhelmed me. However, the fact that those children suffer does not make their lives valueless. The suffering they endure does not take away their worth as human beings. It is not up to us, the privileged, to say that children, who will be born into desperately poor circumstances, simply shouldn’t be born at all. Rather, we have an obligation as privileged residents of a privileged country, to share our blessings with those who have less.

Those on both sides of the abortion debate must do more to improve material conditions for the poor, both in the United States and abroad. How we choose to provide that support — through government aid, non-profit organizations or cultivating personal relationships — is another matter. The point is we can’t, in good conscience, fight poverty by killing those who will experience it.

Secondly, abortion advocates are misguided when they insist that legalizing abortion empowers women. Susan B. Anthony, leader of 19th century campaigns for women’s suffrage, writes: “When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society — so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged.”
Anthony recognized that women seeking abortion do not do so because they feel empowered. On the contrary, they are often motivated by a sense of desperation. There is tragic irony in the fact that while abortion rights advocates offer slogans of “choice,” it is often the case that women seek abortions because they feel they have no alternative. Furthermore, before we advocate for legal abortion overseas, we should examine whether abortion has improved conditions for the poor in our own country.

Nearly four decades after Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the U.S., inequality is higher, not lower, than it was in 1973. Look at Detroit, which has 14 abortion clinics. Correlation is certainly not causation, yet it is safe to say that access to legal abortion has not kept Detroit women out of poverty. Legalizing abortion in Kenya will not make Kenyan women less poor. Abortion will not educate them or provide better hospitals or income. These are the areas where we should focus our efforts to empower women — education, maternal and child health care, financial opportunities such as microfinance, etc. Misplaced emphasis on legal abortion for impoverished women distracts from the lack of educational and material resources that drives them to seek abortion in the first place.

The reality is that women want to bring their children into a world where they can adequately care and provide for them. Efforts to empower women should target the lack of educational opportunities, material resources and personal support that lead women to feel that they cannot bring that child into the world — the reasons women seek abortion in the first place. Let’s work together in a genuine creative effort to find real, workable solutions to poverty, but not by aborting the children of the poor.

On Wednesday, Nov. 9 three women who chose abortion will be speaking about this experience and its effect on them to the campus community. It will be in the Henderson Room of the Michigan League at 7 p.m. with a question-and-answer period to follow the speakers. I would encourage anyone who is interested to attend.