Young men flocking to pro-life mov't in 'historic numbers' as Students for Life, TPUSA launch campus free-speech series

8-campus tour set to challenge students on feminism, abortion

By Ian M. Giatti, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, October 21, 2026

DENTON, Texas — A national pro-life advocacy group is teaming up with Turning Point USA (TPUSA) to launch their first-ever partnered series of campus free-speech events to challenge long-held claims about modern feminism and abortion. 

Titled “Feminists Lied: Prove Me Wrong,” the eight-campus tour is led by Students for Life of America (SFLA) President Kristan Hawkins and invites students to debate whether feminism and pro-abortion “reproductive rights” have helped women more than they have harmed them.

The series, which began Tuesday at the University of North Texas (UNT), will focus on arguing that decades of messaging about career success, independence and abortion as the price of equality have left many women unfulfilled.

In a campus interview at Tuesday’s launch, Hawkins described the organization’s dual mission. "It's about having conversations and dialogue on college campuses. We know this is where the abortion industry targets for their predatory business. This is where we know women are not only choosing abortion, but we know this is where minds are being made up on the issue of abortion," Hawkins told The Christian Post. 

With more than 1,700 groups from college campuses across the U.S., Hawkins said Students for Life is partnering with TPUSA to not only “change hearts and minds about the issue of abortion, but then also transform campuses so no woman ever feels like she has to choose between a child and her education, that she can just feel empowered to choose both.”

Staying true to the template established by slain TPUSA co-founder Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on Sept. 10, 2025, during his own “Prove Me Wrong” event at Utah Valley University, the Students for Life “Prove Me Wrong” series encourages audience members to share their viewpoints on some of life’s biggest questions, including abortion, sexuality and feminism, which, Hawkins said, in its contemporary form, has failed to materialize the promises of earlier movements.

“That’s why we’ll see so many young women — despite having all the things that the early, second-wave feminists told women that we needed to achieve in our world — despite having all of those things, we are still very unhappy,” she said. “Depression rates, anxiety rates, SSRI use are through the roof with young women. And so, they’re still deeply hurting despite being told that they have everything that they needed to have.”

From debates over biological sex — which Hawkins linked to the fragmentation of “old-fashioned” feminists who “know what it’s actually like to be raped and could tell you what a woman is” and contemporary feminists — to campuses where many female students envision careers that may not include traditional motherhood, Hawkins said these conversations on campus will often yield surprising results.

“You can kind of just see the shock on their face, because no one has asked them the radical question of, ‘Is your life meant for anyone besides yourself?’” she said. “I would think that’s a very standard question, but it’s not in today’s world. You know, asking a girl a question of what gives your life value? Where does your value come from? They’re not answering that question. That’s why we need to be honest.”

And it’s not just young women who are asking these foundational questions: in the post-Dobbs era, public opinion polling indicates more Americans now claim to hold morally absolutist views on abortion, particularly young men, who Hawkins said are “coming over to the pro-life movement in historic numbers.”

She added, “I think a lot of young men have always been [pro-life], and I think this is natural, men who are created to be the protectors of our families. … I think it’s given more permission to young men to speak out and be like, ‘No, I think abortion is killing. I think abortion is a very important issue to me.’”

At the same time, she said the abortion industry has worked toward a “very concentrated approach” to blur traditionally pro-life distinctions, particularly for college-age women, whom Hawkins said will often confuse the topic of abortion with miscarriage.

“People will say things like, ‘Well, we need abortion because of miscarriage.’ And I’m like, are we talking about every single abortion ban in the country that allows for a woman who’s experiencing a tragic miscarriage to receive the care that she needs to remove her dead child from within her?" she said. "That’s not a pro-life debate at all, because the child is no longer living.”

Hawkins also described "an effort by the abortion industry to actually use the word ‘miscarriage’ to describe an abortion now. … That is 100 percent different than a direct intentional abortion, because there’s a huge difference.

"And the huge difference is," she added, "is there a beating heart?

Hawkins summed up the core challenge of the tour this way: “If men do not have to sacrifice their children in order to succeed, why should women? A society that values women should treat motherhood as an essential contribution worthy of honor, not a liability. Students deserve to hear that case, and we are going to make it on their campuses.”

Following Tuesday’s event at UNT, the “Prove Me Wrong” tour is set to travel to Grand Valley State University, the University of Cincinnati, Boise State University, the University of New Mexico, the University of Arizona, Southern Oregon University and the University of Washington.