When Selah Hurd joined the Voice for Life (VFL) trip to Washington D.C., she wasn’t doing it for the free weekend away from school — made possible through fundraising — or even because it was an important political issue to her.
Hurd’s attendance was much more personal.
Hurd was an unplanned pregnancy herself — and on Jan. 23, she walked in the National March for Life (MFL) to advocate for the unborn lives of other babies like herself. In fact, her mother was about her age when Hurd, a freshman English writing major, was born.
“This has always felt like a very relevant issue to me for my family’s history,” Hurd said while walking to the march, “and this just is a great opportunity to come and support something I feel really passionate about.”
Sophia Hsia, a sophomore psychology major, knows friends and close acquaintances who have had abortions. She believes the students who participated in the March For Life — including the 78 Wheaton students who led the charge — show the importance of this cause for her generation.
Hope Mellinger, a freshman studying international relations, agreed with Hsia.
“We’re students. We’ve probably been affected by this. I think there’s a percentage of our generation that is missing because of abortion, so it’s absolutely something that’s relevant to us that affects us,” Mellinger said.
The students left for D.C. on Thursday morning, Jan. 23. VFL divided students into different cohorts with VFL cabinet leaders to manage the large crowd.
The next day, students and Wheaton faculty walked from their hotel to the Washington Monument, where they received the MFL banner and flags. The voices of the pre-march rally speakers could barely be heard over the chatter of the tens of thousands of marchers waiting for the event to begin. Wheaton students watched the live broadcast of VFL co-president Hannah Lape giving her speech to the crowd.
Abby Simmons, a freshman English major, has been part of VFL since the first week of class when she joined the club’s Saturday prayers outside a local Planned Parenthood. Now as the club’s social media manager, Simmons used her passion for the movement to help lead and direct the MFL trip — and she hoped it made a lasting impact.
“My hope is that a lot of Wheaton students become really passionate about this cause, and whether or not it’s Voice for Life or another pro-life ministry or volunteering, they want to get involved,” Simmons said.
While some students who came to the march were involved in the anti-abortion movement previously, others were new to the scene. Junior Spanish and anthropology major Elijah Fish said the value of unborn lives was an important issue to support.
“I thought, ‘If I’m gonna have this value, I should do something to act on it. And this is a good way to start,’” Fish said. Although this was his first time at the march, Fish hopes to do more to support the cause.
Wheaton students also attended the National Pro-Life Summit, held at the J. W. Marriot Hotel and hosted by Students for Life (SFL). The summit featured keynote speakers such as SFL President Kristan Hawkins, Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk and Bethany Hamilton, a motivational speaker since she lost her arm in a shark attack. General large group sessions and smaller breakout sessions throughout the day helped students learn how to argue against abortion, defend the reasons to support life and support the next steps for what the movement hopes to achieve politically.
The summit emphasized the next steps for the pro-life movement after the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Speakers at the summit applauded Trump’s recent pardon of 23 anti-Planned Parenthood protestors and his executive order that prohibits the funding or promotion of elective abortions with federal tax dollars.
The political tone of the summit was evident through speakers Abby Johnson, previously a director of a Planned Parenthood clinic who resigned in 2009; Hawkins; Dr. Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon and government official; and Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation. All emphasized past victories for the pro-life movement while also stressing that the pro-life “fight” wasn’t over, which was met by many nodding heads, applause and even Trump’s signature celebration dance.
They shared specific aims, including defunding Planned Parenthood and making abortion “illegal and unthinkable” in all cities. Johnson shared dissatisfaction with the current administration’s allowance of tax dollars to go toward Planned Parenthood, which for the past 100 years has ensured access to “quality health care, education and information for all families” with professionals in medicine, sexual health, advocacy, communication and law, according to the organization’s website.
“While we appreciate what President Trump has done so far, it’s not enough,” Johnson said.
Rachel Shaughnessy, a senior history major who attended the march and summit, was uneasy about the political atmosphere at the summit, mentioning Kirk as a figure she was skeptical of due to how he is portrayed interacting with teenagers and college students on social media, which she described as aggressive. She was also grateful that Johnson mentioned not being satisfied with all that Trump had done.
“Sometimes when a president does what we think is good, we’re very grateful for that. Well, there’s more they can do — we shouldn’t be blinded by what they have ,” she said.
Shylah Dozeman, a junior business economics major, voiced similar dissatisfaction. She was surprised, given the seemingly apolitical advertising for the trip, how partisan it seemed with many of the speakers explicitly voicing support for Trump, which she said communicated that you had to be a Trump supporter to be anti-abortion.
“I feel like this should be a pro-life event; that’s why it spans across political routes. I would rather it be more life-centered than Trump-centered,” she said.
Conversely, Liz Mooney, a homeschooled high school student who leads the SFL chapter in her hometown, attended the rally and the march wearing a “MAGA” beanie. She said the Trump administration is moving in the “right direction.” She described waking up each day thinking about how she can contribute to the anti-abortion movement and that one day she hopes to be a speaker for the anti-abortion cause.
She voiced that although she wanted to see Trump’s policy change to a complete ban on abortion without exceptions for rape or incest, she understands that “he has to keep the peace.”
Jack Naylor, the VFL prayer chaplain and a sophomore archaeology major, said he didn’t want to be tied to any party. He added that he believes the march represented more than a singular party or religion coming together, hoping that ultimately leaders on both sides of the aisle would pass legislation to ban abortion.
“I think first and foremost, though, the church must represent Christ to the nation, not to try to take power,” he said.
Naylor said he and other VFL cabinet members appreciated the “diversity and magnitude of Christendom” in the march. Hymns such as “Amazing Grace” were sung by marchers from a wide range of Christian traditions.
Naylor added that “there’s so much to be learned” from each group despite how their definition of being anti-abortion may differ from his own. Different groups included Democrats for Life, who were attending the march, and Young Americans for Liberty, who were present at the summit.
“They have an impulse towards helping women and that’s important to take into account, even if I strongly disagree with them on other things,” he continued.
Back in Illinois, some Wheaton students felt uncomfortable with the college’s role at the march. Elinor Hiller, a senior studying anthropology, said she was grieved by seeing the school lead the march when it seemed conflated with right-wing politics. The college is “deliberately nonpartisan,” so why make a “political statement now,” she asked.
Hiller, who is anti-abortion, doesn’t feel comfortable aligning herself with the movement as a whole and wishes the institution would realize she and many others do not feel represented by the “stance” the college took. She has a family member who received what she called a life-saving abortion, so she stressed that the issue is complicated.
“She’s been deeply impacted by the sort of rhetoric that the pro-life movement uses that has left her feeling demonized and cast out of Christian circles,” Hiller said.
Isabelle Caldwell, a sophomore studying psychology conveyed a similar sentiment. She felt unsettled to see language such as “everyone deserves a birthday” in signage by those at the march, expressing that it seemed to treat abortion like a “black and white” issue. She also found it dismissive and hurtful, knowing individuals who have been faced with the decision of abortion.
“Reducing the issue to a simple slogan on a sign ignores the depth of these struggles and the real, lived experiences of people who face them,” she said.
Following the return of student marchers to Wheaton’s campus, the college posted to its official Instagram page, @wheatoncollegeil, celebrating those who went for “taking a bold stand in our nation’s capital.” It was met with praise and backlash alike; several alumni voiced disappointment in the institution.
Alex Ramirez, a senior Christian formation and ministry major, felt clear about what the college was conveying by leading the march. As someone who is involved in the Office of Ministry and Evangelism, she described sanctity-of-life values as what has led her to be engaged in anti-abortion causes like advocating for after-birth humanitarian aid.
“I think it’s just a great representation of the institution and how we’re coming with peace and love, grace and mercy,” she said.
However, Monik Flores ’22 said she was frustrated that Wheaton seemed to appeal more to its donors than its students by publicly acknowledging the efforts of VFL but not for other student groups who are engaged in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts on campus such as Unidad or William Osborne Society.
“Are they proud of their students who are advocating for DEI things; would they ever showcase them that loudly?” she said.
Flores says that in the world today “where Christianity grows justifyingly unpopular” students, faculty and staff at Wheaton have the chance to redeem the name of Christ’s love by advocating for all.
John Park ‘18 was disappointed also to see Wheaton as an institution aligning itself with right-wing agendas, considering the impacts that the current Trump administration has had on minority students. He holds that being within the anti-abortion political movement has different connotations than simply believing in life at conception.
“I believe it is inappropriate for Wheaton College to publicly align itself with a movement that has political ties with agendas that threaten people in the margins,” he said.
In the president’s town hall chapel on Feb. 3, junior international relations major Julia Moon asked, “If Wheaton has been willing to raise their voice and take political action in support of the unborn, then why have we refrained from speaking on behalf of millions of lives already in this country that are now at risk?” referring to refugees impacted by Trump’s freezing of humanitarian aid.
President Philip Ryken responded that the participation of those from Wheaton at the march was through a “longstanding” and “approved” student organization of the college, VFL. Any communication regarding their participation was only for reasons of informing constituents about the involvement of students in those organizations. He said that the college does not advocate for a particular party or candidate across all issues.
In the college Community Covenant, the institution commits to “uphold the God-given worth of human beings, from conception to death, as the unique image-bearers of God” while also noting that the community “seeks to foster the practice of responsible Christian freedom.”
He cited the Community Covenant and said, “We want to effectively represent Jesus Christ across the full range of political issues; that certainly refers to how we welcome strangers, being pro-life in every aspect from conception to the grave.”
