Photo Credit: Shane Vander Hart
(Ames, IA) “Can you guess how many socks there are?”
That was a question asked of students walking in to get lunch at the Memorial Union at Iowa State University. Students for Life of America had a display that included several laundry baskets of baby socks. Most students lowballed the number. The highest guess heard on Thursday at lunch was 2000. The correct number was 6,276 baby socks. This figure represents the estimated number of abortions that Planned Parenthood completes every week.
After students guessed and provided the answer along with what number represented several seemed surprised by the number.
“I am involved with Students for LIfe because I’m really passionate about saving lives and helping mothers who are in crisis pregnancies. I don’t think they should have to resort to killing their babies because their lives are so beautiful and valued,” Audrey Nelson, a sophomore from Ames who is an accounting and public relations major, told Caffeinated Thoughts.
“We really want to help mothers realize their own dignity and the dignity that transfers over to their baby. And not only that, but abortion is a violent thing that is taking another human life. It’s not healthy for the mother, and it is not healthy for the baby, and we want to provide options and other services for mothers in crisis pregnancies,” she added.
Nelson joined Students for Life as a freshman, and she was one of two students by the display talking to students who walked by.
“I’ve only been involved (with Students for LIfe) for a couple of years, but I got involved when I got to Iowa State to start grad studies. I appreciate the club and what it is doing – it’s pro-life advocacy, so I’m just trying to help out with that,” Melinda Hoyt, the president of the Iowa Student Students for Life club, explained to Caffeinated Thoughts.
The display is part of a nationwide tour called #SockIt2PP whose goal is to raise awareness about the number of abortions Planned Parenthood commits. The tour launched on Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The Students for Life’s truck, filled with 328,348 baby socks representing the number of abortions Planned Parenthood does in one year, visited state offices for U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-PA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), and Mitch McConnell (R-KY). They will also visit the Charleston, WV office of U.S. Senator Joe Machin (D-WV) and the Planned Parenthood office in Washington, DC.
Students for Life is pushing for Congress to defund Planned Parenthood of taxpayer dollars.
Along with the truck tour, Students for LIfe will visit 90 campuses with their display during the fall semester. Along with Iowa State, the #SockIt2PP campus tour visited Central College in Pella and the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
“We work with 1200 students groups, and the students wanted to get back to the basics of what is abortion? A lot of our peers don’t know what the procedure is and what happens during the procedure,” David Cordaro, the Upper Midwest Regional Coordinator for Students for Life of America, told Caffeinated Thoughts.
Their display called “The Violence of Abortion” included descriptions of what each surgical and medical procedure does to a woman and the preborn during an abortion.
Cordaro, an Iowa State alumni, said Students for Life has nine college chapters in Iowa at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, Central College, Clarke College, Loras College, Drake University, DMACC, Grand View University, and Simpson College.