Gen Z activists look to shake up the anti-abortion movement

Hayden Laye joined protesters outside the Supreme Court last month as the justices weighed a case that could change access to abortion pills. An LGBTQ advocate and proud Democrat, he wore a blue shirt and waved a small rainbow flag.

Laye was there as part of the push to end abortion in America. 

“We stand up for the less fortunate than us and the most vulnerable,” Laye said of like-minded Democrats. “We stand up for those being affected by climate change. We stand up for the single mother and we also need to stand up for preborn children, because they don’t have a voice.”

Laye said he’s heard plenty of people tell him that his positions are incompatible. “Unfortunately, when people tell me that I can’t do something, I normally go and do it,” he told The Hill. 

Laye, a recent high school graduate in South Carolina, is the development coordinator of Democrats for Life of America and is on the Rainbow Pro Life Alliance board. He is part of an often overlooked coalition of young voters who are pushing the anti-abortion movement to expand its tent and tap into the growing political power of Gen Zers. 

Younger anti-abortion activists are pushing a more positive message focused on supporting pregnant women, and debating how to make space for a more diverse and less religious generation in what has long been a Christian-dominated movement. 

“Out of all the pro-lifers I know, I know very few pro-lifers who are straight white conservative men, and that’s what you’re always told that pro-lifers always are,” Laye said. “Most of the people that I know are queer, nonreligious — or at least not Christian — a woman, a person of color.”

Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, said young people are the most likely to actually experience unwanted — or at least unexpected — pregnancies, making them the best leaders in the fight against abortion access. 

“Also, young people are the drivers of our culture,” Hawkins said. “You know, it’s not lost, I think, on a lot of folks that you can see a legislative or a political victory today, but if you fail to persuade and educate the younger generation, all of your work will be or be erased in 10, 20, 30 years.”

But that reality isn’t always evident in anti-abortion campaigns. William Reynolds, a high school senior who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, said some young people who oppose abortion are deterred by the movement’s outdated messaging and lack of inclusivity. 

He works with Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, an anti-abortion group primarily comprising young people who “don’t fit into the traditional pro-life mold.” He said the group is sometimes shunned for being too radical. 

“We get in ‘trouble’, with a lot of, you know, mainstream pro-life people,” Reynolds said. “The sticker on the megaphone says ‘f‑‑‑ abortion’, right, like we’re willing to say and do things that many mainstream pro-life people won’t do.”

Reynolds said the main reason abortion rights won on the ballot in places like Ohio and Kansas is because organizations opposing abortion are not being inclusive or making compromises on issues like access to contraception. 

“We wonder why we keep losing in all these ballot measures,” Reynolds said. “It’s because we all were coming across as disjointed jerks, and we really need to fix that.”

“Gen Z is overwhelmingly progressive and increasingly secular, and there is just nobody holding space for that in the pro-life movement,” Reynolds added. “And that’s a real problem, and they’re gonna vote that way. They’re gonna continue to vote that way unless we change something.”

Kenzi Bustamante, a senior at the University of Chicago, is the president of her university’s Students for Life organization. She said the anti-abortion movement is making a mistake when it unnecessarily shuts the door on certain communities. 

She gave the example of an anti-abortion group that published a story condemning a gay couple for using surrogacy to have a child. Surrogacy is criticized by some abortion opponents for its use of in vitro fertilization (IVF), which often requires some embryos to be destroyed. 

“It seems like the message was, ‘We condemn gay couples for raising children.’ Like that’s how it was perceived,” Bustamante said. “Whereas like, what they were really saying is IVF and surrogacy destroy life, but they didn’t focus on that enough.”

Bustamante sees significant overlap between the effort against abortion and progressive movements, such as a focus on human rights, equality and treating people with dignity. She said that the anti-abortion movement has also started to appeal to a wider variety of people and students by supporting policies such as making birth free. 

She said part of that strategy is emphasizing that the movement “cares about women and babies equally.”

“Because that’s one common misconception is that we don’t care about women at all,” Bustamante said. “I think that they’re doing a better job of doing that by having those ‘make birth free’ initiatives, having more resources, free resources available for pregnant women than they had in the past.”

However, Bustamante said some differences are hard to overcome. She recalled one person involved in the University of Chicago’s Right to Life group who cared deeply about transgender rights and ending abortion.

“It’s just uncomfortable for either person on either side trying to come to the middle,” Bustamante said. 

But she said the movement at its core should be accessible to anyone.

“It’s a one-issue kind of movement,” Bustamante said. “The primary thing is reduce abortions.”

Kylie Gallegos is a senior at the University of Notre Dame and heads Notre Dame Right to Life, a group she said is specifically not branded as being Republican or Democrat and doesn’t use Catholic labels like “traditional.”

“Our goal is simply to spread the message that everyone — Catholics, protestants, atheists, LGBTQ+, young, old, rich, and poor — are called to be pro-life,” Gallegos said in an email to The Hill. “Our message of the dignity of every human person does not leave anyone out. It is a shame that being pro-life has become something that people don’t understand should extend to everyone. Being pro-life is not just a political identity, it’s a way of life.”

Gallegos said the club has a different approach than the “Grim Reaper type” abortion opponents who preach on street corners or people who show graphic aborted baby pictures. 

“We believe life is good and should be valued and protected; acting in ways that only show hate for another group of people is not going to give us the result we are working toward,” she said. 

She said Notre Dame Right to Life prioritizes creating a low bar of entry so more people attend their programming, and the club pushes a “positive perspective on life and human life and when the value of human life begins.”

Reynolds said he has seen “significant movement” in the amount young people with progressive ideas who are finding a place in anti-abortion organizations. He said the full impact on the anti-abortion movement will come as these students gain more influence.

“Because ultimately, one day, especially if I have anything to say about it, we’re going to completely change the way people think about pro-life people in this country,” Reynolds said.