College pro-lifers visible on campuses and in print.

Gone are the days when "pro-life student" was considered a contradiction in terms. Students who believe in the sanctity of life have always been on campuses, but as their numbers grow, so does their visibility. No longer do pro-life college students feel intimidated to speak up. This year alone, dozens of schools feature new Students for Life groups. Further, campus newspapers are running stories about the activities of these groups, and students are routinely publishing op-eds and letters to the editor in their school papers.

Consistent with polls confirming the American public is becoming more pro-life, studies on college students reveal the same movement. According to a popular UCLA survey of incoming freshmen, by 1999, freshman support

for keeping abortion legal declined for the sixth straight year to a record low of 50.9 percent. This compares with 53.5 percent in 1997 and a high of 64.9 percent in 1990.

These increasingly pro-life attitudes have fueled the growth in the college right-to-life movement. This growth has included an expanded range of activities by Students for Life groups.

Traditionally, groups have set up information tables around campus, hosted forums and debates, raised funds and volunteered for right-to-life organizations, participated in pro-life events, and written letters to their elected officials in favor of or opposition to legislation.

For the second year, Harvard Right to Life, a stalwart group in the college movement, is running a series of educational posters. Choose Life at Yale College (CLAY), a new group founded by junior Sarah Heiman, received considerable press attention for petitioning the university to allow students who oppose abortion to receive a rebate from the university health plan. It has also put out a pamphlet outlining the resources available to a pregnant woman in the local community and nationally, and are looking at developing a web site.

At Notre Dame, a love for football has not eclipsed respect for life. Students quietly witness to the pro-life cause by having club members wear a small piece of black electrical tape on their shirts to football games. When people inquire, they relate that they wear the tape "in memory of all the babies killed and women wounded by abortion."