Students for Life at Saint Louis
University, a chartered student organization at the Catholic, Jesuit
university, released the following statement today ahead of tonight's address
by Touré Neblett, the keynote speaker for Saint Louis University's celebration
of Black History Month.
“Students for Life joins Saint
Louis University in admonishing Mr. Neblett’s recent statements about abortion.
We consider them to be abhorrent, misleading, and inconsistent with medical and
social science,” said the organization's president, Patrick Grillot. “The
status of a preborn child in the womb is not conditioned upon the mother's intentions;
it is a unique, human life from the moment of conception.”
Students
for Life affirmed the official University statement released today. “The
comments that Mr. Neblett has recently made about abortion are unacceptable and
absolutely incongruent with SLU’s Catholic, Jesuit identity,” the release
stated. “Simply put, the University admonishes his expressed views on
abortion.”
Students for Life denounced Neblett’s
claim that abortion is a form of family planning and called on him to
support a tangible initiative of his organization to prevent abortion.
“Abortion does not make for
stronger families, only fewer children. It ends the life of an innocent human
being. It is not and should not be considered ‘family planning’ as Mr. Neblett
describes it. We all must do more to provide more support structures to
pregnant women and expectant fathers so they can become parents without being
forced to drop out of school, lose their job, or suffer other negative
consequences. Students for Life calls on Mr. Neblett to put his words into
actions to support this population by donating the honorarium he received for
tonight's speech to the Virginia D. Murphy Endowment for Pregnant and Parenting
Student Assistance at Saint Louis University.”
This endowment, created by Students
for Life with the philosophy that no student should ever have to choose between
having a child and having an education, provides financial aid, referrals to
social services, and personal support to pregnant and parenting students at
SLU. Tens of thousands of dollars has been dispersed to dozens of women and men
in the past four years, and the total size of the endowment recently surpassed
$100,000.
During the Jan. 25 episode of
MSNBC's The Cycle, which Neblett co-hosts, he declared that
the decision that he and his pregnant former girlfriend had made years earlier
to pursue an abortion, “in some ways saved my life.” He continued, “I
thank God and country that when I fell into a bad situation, abortion was there
to save me and keep me on a path toward building a strong family I have now—and
I pray that safety net remains in place.”
However, abortion is not a “safety
net,” Grillot said. “Mr. Neblett’s attempt to justify abortion as a form of
family planning that will lead to ‘stronger children, stronger families, and
thus stronger adults and a stronger America’ fails to recognize the dignity and
value of the lives of 55 million children that have been ended in the 40 years
of legal abortion in America.”
On the same day as Neblett’s
remarks, 55 SLU students and alumni joined hundreds of thousands of
advocates in the March for Life in Washington, D.C. to protest the legal status
of abortion and to mourn the 55 million lives lost to abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Neblett’s speech starts at 7 p.m.
tonight in the Carlo Auditorium of Tegeler Hall on the Frost Campus of Saint
Louis University.
About Students for Life at Saint Louis University:
Students for Life is a
fellowship committed to upholding the fundamental right to life on the campus
of Saint Louis University. We follow the guidance of Catholic thought regarding
the dignity of all human life from conception to natural death. The Jesuit
Mission of Saint Louis University calls us to discern prayerful,
intellectual, and active means of building a culture of life that rejects the
institution of abortion.
Students for Life holds the
position that human life exists from conception until natural death; that all
human beings have the right to life regardless of age, health, function,
condition of dependency, or crimes committed, including the unborn from the
moment of conception; that the right to life is the first right of a human
being and the condition of all other rights; that the right of all human beings
to life, though it exists antecedent to its recognition, demands recognition;
and that to refuse the right of all human beings to life is strictly unjust.
Students for Life has been a chartered
student organization of the Student Government Association at Saint Louis
University since 1992.
About Saint Louis University:
Saint Louis University is a
Catholic, Jesuit institution that values academic excellence, life-changing
research, compassionate health care, and a strong commitment to faith and
service.
Founded in 1818, the University fosters the intellectual and character
development of nearly 14,000 students on two campuses in St. Louis, Missouri
and Madrid, Spain. Building on a legacy of nearly 200 years, Saint Louis
University continues to move forward with an unwavering commitment to a higher
purpose, a greater good.
