On Monday, Sept. 30, Belles for Life, an anti-abortion student organization at Saint Mary's, hosted a training session on how to facilitate civil discussions about abortion. The session was led by Benjamin Ice, the Great Lakes regional coordinator for Students for Life of America. Ice, who is a cyber security student at Western Governors University, spoke for an hour and a half on the skills he obtained from advocacy within his four years of working for Students for Life.
Students for Life of America is an anti-abortion organization aimed at increasing student involvement in the movement. The organization has visited 1,400 campuses and claims to have trained over 202,000 advocates. Ice’s approach to conversations on the politics and philosophy of ethics and the science surrounding the “pro-life” and “pro-choice” debate allowed the attendees to feel more equipped to handle civil conversations.
Club president senior Jocelyn Porter emphasized the importance of this civil approach.
“It doesn’t have to be so scary to approach these conversations. We can feel collected and be nice,” Porter said.
Ice highlighted the values of respect and finding common ground and clarity.
“One of the big takeaways is being able to find common ground,” junior social media and marketing coordinator Kyndal Christy said. “A lot of understanding can be gained from common ground.”
Ice encouraged practice throughout the seminar by involving students in debating exercises where they switched positions and posed common abortion rights arguments.
When prompted, Ice recounted his path toward advocacy, admitting he “used to be pro-choice and not Catholic.” It was seeing the 2019 movie “Unplanned” via clips on Instagram which changed his mind. The film is about a clinic director at Planned Parenthood who becomes an anti-abortion advocate.
Ice explained his reaction to the clips.
“I’m sitting here pro-choice because I thought abortion was women empowerment, but there’s nothing empowering in this — it is tragic,” Ice said. “With how terrible chemical abortion is, it is clearly not pro-women. There has to be a better option.”
He said that his interpretation of the movie and change in opinion did not concern the life of the child initially, instead “everything was for women.”
“I have a mom, I have a sister. I don’t want her to be treated that way,” he said.
Ice proceeded to start an anti-abortion club at his high school and gradually became more involved as time went on. Now with Students for Life, he currently travels to colleges in the area, giving similar seminars and advice.
As the seminar concluded, Ice was commended by the attendees and board members for his presentation. The board of Belles for Life gathered the attendees to take a photo with the lecturer.
“We’re really happy to have Ben,” Porter said.
Porter enlightened her hope for a continuation of the seminar.
“I think we should try and make this at least a once a year thing to refresh people of apologetics, especially for incoming freshmen who maybe have never experienced it before,” she said.
Junior Alessandra Besachio further stressed the importance of involving first year Saint Mary’s College students in these seminars.
“I think especially in college, at least in my personal pro-life journey, I feel that women are highly targeted in social media with generalizations of what you should or should not believe,” she said.
By attending higher-education institutions with a further diverse and greater population samplings, Besachio noted, students “start developing their own ideas and opinions rather than regurgitating the media.”
The meeting Monday night marks the beginning of an annual series of seminars for members of Belles for Life.
