November 4, 2020
SFLA & SFLAction Celebrate the Passage of Louisiana Amendment 1: “Voters Must be Free to Decide their Own Laws, not Judges.”
“Voters in Louisiana sent a clear message with Amendment 1 that they want to decide their abortion laws, not unelected judges,” said SFLA/SFLAction’s Kristan Hawkins.
FREDERICKSBURG, V.A. and BATON ROUGE, L.A. (11-03-20) – Louisiana voters passed Amendment 1 by large margins, which adds to the state constitution the language: “To protect human life, nothing in this constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.” Students for Life of America and SFLAction President Kristan Hawkins celebrated the passage of Amendment 1 as “an acknowledgment of the common-sense notion that voters should decide their laws. But in today’s political environment it takes a constitutional amendment to keep judges from legislating on abortion.”
The passage of Amendment 1 does not mean there is a ban on abortion in Louisiana. If Roe v. Wade were reversed, the voters would decide how to handle the issue through their legislators.
Louisiana ranks as the most pro-life state. A Remington Research Group poll released in 2019, commissioned by Louisiana Right to Life, found that 70 percent of Louisianans are pro-life.
“The people of Louisiana have every right to protect women and their children, born and pre-born, and should not be forced to comply with the abortion activism of other states or aggressive judges,” said Hawkins.
MORE ON SFLA/SFLAction IN THIS ELECTION CYCLE: Students for Life and Students for Life Action engaged in multiple states through in-person door knocking, calls, texts, and mobilizations on campuses, calling on voters to #VotePro-LifeFirst as well reminding people of the importance of who gets to pick Supreme Court Justices, given the way in which the human rights issue of our day was hijacked by the high court 50 years ago.
In the final stretch, SFLA/SFLAction launched a new, 6-figure campaign buy in a 48-hour GOTV blitz this Monday and Tuesday designed to rally voters aged 18 to 35 to #VoteProLifeFirst. To accomplish this 48-hour GOTV blitz, SFLAction made more than 1.5 million personal text messages to cell phones, sent nearly 900,000 voicemail messages to land lines as well as launched a five-digit ad buy on social media. Among those contacted in this blitz were 273,000 new voters who were considered swing voters on the life issue as well as more than 1 million pro-life, yet low propensity voters who hadn’t voted early this fall in the following 9 states: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Students for Life’s GOTV blitz follows up extensive fall grassroots campaign in which SFLA/SFLAction team members and volunteers …
• Made more than 523,022 phone calls
• Contacted more than 1.6 million, primarily voters
• Sent more than 2.18 million personal text messages
• Knocked on more than 150,000 doors
The #VoteProLifeFirst digital media campaign included 85 different image ads and multiple videos reaching voters whose views on abortion vary and were seen more than 8 million times. More than 2.28 million voters engaged with the efforts this fall, including the 107,000 young voters who pledged to vote pro-life first as a result.
Students for Life of America’s “Sock the Vote” campus tours also went to 46 states, calling on new voters to prioritize abortion which ends 2,362 lives each day. Students used baby socks as part of the display. This followed a very successful earlier campaign, “Sock it to Planned Parenthood,” during which SFLA held events and traveled across the country with a truck carrying 328,348 baby socks, representing the number of abortions Planned Parenthood commits each year.
In October, SFLA/SFLAction went from Alaska to Florida in a 10-state #Justice4Life tour on behalf of now Justice Amy Coney Barrett, an extension of the SFLAction Activism Weekends that included more than 731,000 voters contacted. SFLAction conducted similar student trips over the summer, knocking on more than 50,000 doors and making more than 200,000 phone calls to educate voters in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and Kansas before key Republican and Democratic primaries.
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Students for Life Action (SFLAction) is the 501c4 sister organization of Students for Life of America (SFLA), the nation’s largest, pro-life, student organization with more than 1,240 groups on middle, high school, and university campuses in all 50 states. Students for Life has more conversations with those most targeted by the abortion industry every day, week, and year than any other pro-life outreach in the world and mobilizes the Pro-Life Generation to confront abortion at the local, state and national levels daily. Every week, Students for Life entities reach more than 2 million people across social media platforms to have nearly 200,000 digital conversations with the most engaged pro-life online audience in the world.
Students for Life of America (SFLA) is the nation’s largest, pro-life, youth organization. Headquartered in Fredericksburg, VA, SFLA serves more than 1,240 groups on college and university, middle and high school, medical and law school campuses in all 50 states. Student pro-life organizations work to confront policies on their campuses to support pregnant and parenting students, to end Planned Parenthood’s relationships with schools and communities, and to change minds of their peers about abortion. SFLA has more conversations with those most targeted by the abortion industry every day, week, and year than any other pro-life outreach in the world and mobilizes the Pro-Life Generation to confront abortion at the local, state and national levels daily. Every week, Students for Life entities reach more than 2 million people across social media platforms to have nearly 200,000 digital conversations with the most engaged pro-life online audience in the world.