Saint Catherine Newman Center students form pro-life group; plan Right to Life events

Friday, Jan. 23, 2015

SALT LAKE CITY — Lauren Keeling arrived on the University of Utah campus as a freshman from Durham, N.C., when school began last fall and immediately searched for a parish to join. She became a member of Saint Catherine of Siena Newman Center, and then looked for the campus pro-life group. 

There wasn’t one. Keeling decided to form the pro-life group Right to Life, and recruited Sullivan Hughes, a University of Utah sophomore, to help her.

“I didn’t realize there were only pro-choice groups on campus,” said Hughes, Right to Life co-president. “That seemed wrong, so we started brainstorming what we wanted to accomplish.” 

Right to Life is a pro-life group for University of Utah students and young adults of all ethnic and religious backgrounds. 

“We strive to inform students and young adults about the alternatives to abortion in the event of an unplanned pregnancy,” Keeling said. “We partner with Students for Life of America.” 

Students for Life of America is a national pro-life organization that wants to “abolish abortion in our lifetime, and plans to do that by identifying, educating, and activating this generation of young people,” according to the website. Since 2006, Students for Life has helped to establish and build over 750 student pro-life organizations and have trained tens of thousands of students nationwide. 

Lauren Castillo from Students for Life has been helping Keeling and Hughes with ideas, pamphlets, flyers and other information, said Hughes. 

Castillo will come to Utah this spring to train members of the group to be sidewalk counselors, Keeling said. “As a sidewalk counselor we will be able to talk to young girls, women or men who are inquiring about abortion or those who have had an abortion at Planned Parenthood, and give them facts, support and encouragement on the idea of life and adoption. We will offer our support and let them know about Project Rachel, a program that helps women grieve the loss of an aborted child.”

Right to Life may be new but already has recruited 14 members. Their goal is to help struggling couples or single women through a pregnancy and the early childhood development process through education, donations and service. They hold meetings on the first Wednesday of each month, and will post where to meet on Facebook under Right to Life University of Utah. 

While growing up in North Carolina, Keeling’s family was pro-choice, she said and four years ago she attended her first March for Life in Washington, D.C., said Keeling. “I attended with friends who talked me into going. I was undecided and didn’t know what I believed in. I went on the March for Life and I saw all the thousands of people gathered together for this one cause and I became 100 percent pro-life. It was amazing to see. I went back to that march three times with my church and we walked and prayed and chanted and it was an amazing thing to witness. Last year I got my mom to come on the march with me, and it was so wonderful to stand there and support the idea of life with my mom, who is now pro-life.” 

Hughes is from Duchesne, Utah, and grew up in a pro-life family, he said. “It was when I got to college that I started to really get behind my pro-lifeness; I definitely became more adamant about it and started supporting pro-life issues,” he said.

Hughes and Keeling plan to pray with a group in front of Planned Parenthood on 1000 East and 100 South in Salt Lake City on Jan. 22, the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States. For information, contact them at righttolifeUofU@gmail.com. 

On Feb. 9, which is the beginning of Sex Week at the U of U, the Right to Life group will meet near the Students for Choice booth on campus to hand out pro-life information and alternatives to abortion.