April 21, 2025
History in the Making: South Carolina Students for Life Members & National Team Call on State Lawmakers to Pass Protection at Conception
With the Human Life Protection Act in play at the legislature, the Pro-Life Generation will spend April fixing what some in the GOP seem intent on breaking
“The Pro-Life Generation didn’t put our blood, sweat, and tears to oust the three former GOP South Carolina ‘Sister Senators’ for some in the GOP to cave again to the abortion lobby,” said Students for Life Action President Kristan Hawkins. “’The Human Life Protection Act’ represents a historic opportunity to validate and to protect life from its very beginning and would save more than3,000 preborn babies each year. The Cemetery of the Innocents display coming to Columbia represents the preborn constituents relying on legislators to safeguard their lives from the horrors of abortion.”
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Join Students for Life Action’s South Carolina United for Life Activism Week.
COLUMBIA, SC (04-21-2025) – A series of political activism events will occur throughout the month of April to confront legislators in South Carolina’s GOP caucus who are ignoring the Human Life Protection Act, H. 3457, and repeating the pattern of the now-replaced “Sister Senators” who killed the bill in 2023. Students for Life Action (SFLAction) will supersize the activism with a Cemetery of the Innocents display in front of the South Carolina State House on the East Grounds and Gardens this week. This visual will be part of a multi-layered series of events and outreach, to ensure that voters are well aware of the courage – or lack thereof – of legislators who say they are pro-life.
Grassroots activism in support of the legislation, as well as the human worth of children in the womb, will take place over six days in three cities: Columbia, Bluffton, and Sumter. This educational outreach includes door knocking, Cemetery of the Innocents displays, and prayer vigils, as well as geo-fencing the churches of State House Speaker Murrell Smith Jr. and State House Judiciary Committee Chairman Weston Newton, to educate their constituents about the need to act now to pass the Human Life Protection Act.
Additionally, SFLAction team members and students will lobby at the South Carolina State Capitol, including a visit to Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey.
As Students for Life of America (SFLA) has engaged in support of Protection at Conception efforts, some have tried to insist this is an effort from outside the Palmetto State. However, SFLA operates on more than 1,500 campuses in all 50 states, including at Clemson University and 14 campuses in South Carolina.
MEDIA ADVISORY: Join SFLAction at the South Carolina State House on Wednesday, April 23, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. ET, for the Cemetery of the Innocents display.
During this legislative session, the battle has not in the state Senate but was instead centered in the state House. In February, we reported on a troubling appointment that could result in opposition to the bill. We noted: “While we hope for the best, of concern to SFLAction is the appointment of pro-abortion, liberal Democrat Rep. Beth Bernstein to a key post by Speaker Smith Jr. and … Chairman Newton. Currently, Rep. Bernstein serves on the House Judiciary Committee as Family and Probate Laws Subcommittee Chairwoman, the only Democrat to serve as a subcommittee chair.”
That appointment was not the end of the issues in South Carolina.
The in-state effort will encourage voters to reach out to Chairman Newton and Speaker Smith Jr. because the effort is stalled in the state House. The Speaker could bring the bill up without committee support as Chairman Newton has also ignored the Human Life Protection Act, If the bill gets a vote and passes through the House, it would then head to the state Senate. If the session ends as scheduled, May 8th will be the last day to advance this life-saving bill.
In the 2023 session, the media-darlings dubbed the “Sister Senators,” three GOP legislators, blocked the House-passed bill on the state Senate floor. SFLAction engaged in their 2024 June primaries and, by the end of the process, all three were replaced.
Writing at Townhall, SFLAction President Kristan Hawkins wrote: “In the June 2024 South Carolina Republican primary election, SFLAction deployed staff, students, and resources to the state, resulting in over 37,000 pieces of mail, almost 130,000 personal text messages, more than 51,000 phone calls, and thousands of doors knocked.
“And just like that, the ranks of the Sister Senators were decimated – State Sens. Katrina Shealy, Penry Gustafson, and Sandy Senn were all defeated by SFLAction-supported pro-life candidates. Needless to say, they weren’t happy; even more so when our staff showed up to their offices to drop off moving boxes.”
In this new 2025 session, with new members in place, SFLAction again championed the bill, offering Protection at Conception to South Carolinians in the womb. Despite already passing in the House in 2023, House GOP leadership is not blocking a hearing or vote on the bill.
READ: ALERT: THE GOP IN SOUTH CAROLINA MAY BE CAVING TO THE ABORTION LOBBY.
READ: Final Pro-Abortion “Sister Senator” Gets Taken Down in South Carolina Run-Off Victory
READ: Students for Life Action Delivers Moving Boxes to South Carolina Senators Who Betrayed Life
To learn more about SFLAction’s work in South Carolina, click here.
To learn more on the federal slate of South Carolina as reported in SFLAction’s Pro-Life Generation Report Card, click here.
For interviews, contact [email protected].
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The Pro-Life Generation (PLG) is an umbrella organization encompassing the most-cutting edge engagement opportunities for a Vote Pro-Life First Community. PLG includes Students for Life Action (SFLAction), a 501c4, along with its 501c3 sister organization, Students for Life of America (SFLA), that together make up the nation’s largest, pro-life youth organization, managing a grassroots political and policy operation engaging Americans of all ages but with a special emphasis on the largest segment of voters — the Youth Vote. Headquartered in Fredericksburg, VA, PLG/SFLA/SFLAction serves more than 1,500 groups on middle, high school, college, medical, and law school campuses in all 50 states. Our team has more conversations with this generation targeted by the abortion lobby than any other pro-life operation in the world, each week reaching more than 4 million across social media platforms and averaging 1.3 million video views. In addition to SFLA/SFLAction, PLG leads multiple initiatives to lead and serve the future of the pro-life movement including the Campaign for Abortion Free Cities, Standing With You, and the Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement. Over more than 17 years, PLG CEO Kristan Hawkins has grown the operation into a nearly $20M organization, now preparing for an abortion-free America.