‘I’ve become so well known as the pro-life girl that I’ve been approached by abortion supporters in Raleigh who yell at me, spit at me, or make cruel gestures towards me’
She’s been spit at. She’s been slammed against a wall and called a “bitch.” She’s fielded death threats. And yet in the face of all this and more, Lydia Taylor refuses to back down.
Conservative college students on campuses across the country have faced intense backlash for going against the status quo to stand up for their faith and values, and Taylor is among them.
However, many have stood firm in the face of backlash; so has Taylor.
A student at Campbell University, a private Christian college in North Carolina, she serves as president of Campbell’s Students for Life of America chapter and has been an SFLA fellow and ambassador for the last two years. Taylor also founded the North Carolina Pro-Life Force, an organization that provides training to pro-life activists.
“When I arrived at Campbell University as a freshman, I expected to be supported as a pro-life activist on campus since it was a Christian college. I was very wrong,” Taylor wrote as part of an email interview with The College Fix.
“It only took me a couple of months before I was labeled ‘the pro-life girl’ and began receiving death threats, harassment, and stalking both on and off campus. I’ve organized pro-life displays on campus and they’ve been vandalized every time,” she said.
“I’ve become so well known as the pro-life girl that I’ve been approached by abortion supporters in Raleigh who yell at me, spit at me, or make cruel gestures towards me,” Taylor wrote. “In January, I was even assaulted in a public bathroom in Raleigh by an unidentified pro-choicer who followed me in the restroom and slammed me against a wall calling me a ‘pro-life bitch’ and then ran out.”
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Even though faced with much adversity, Taylor described how her pro-life activism efforts on campus have prevailed.
“Despite the backlash, the efforts from my group and I have been successful,” Taylor wrote. “I have changed 117 pro-choice minds on my campus, helped over 20 moms choose life, and got over 130 students to come to a pro-life event I organized last month.”
Not only has Taylor organized protests, diaper drives and speaker events on campus, she has also successfully passed a pro-life pregnancy resource resolution, the first legislation of its kind ever approved at Campbell University.
“I had heard from others on campus that Campbell University didn’t provide access to pregnancy resources on campus, which had left several pregnant students feeling pressured to drop out or abort their babies,” she said.
“I investigated the truth behind this by first visiting the health center, where they confirmed to me they had no pregnancy resources, and not even basic pregnancy tests could be found there.”
After the resolution initially failed in two different instances, Taylor described the incident that motivated her to not give up, and what ultimately led to the passage of the bill on the third vote.
“The night before Congress, I was walking back to my dorm room when I was approached by a young woman I didn’t know,” she said. “She stopped me and asked if I was the pro-life girl, to which I nervously replied that I was. I was nervous that this woman could be one of my haters here to attack me until she told me she needed my help.”
She continued:
She was pregnant and told me she couldn’t find any help from the university. She said she had heard of me on campus and saw that I offered help for pregnant women on campus. She said she was seeking an abortion out of desperation but wanted to come to me first. My heart started beating out of my chest because I knew my next words could mean life or death for her unborn child. So I told her the truth. I told her that no, this university was not offering adequate support for her, but I was. I connected her with local pregnancy resources and encouraged her that she could be a successful student without ending the life of her child.
According to Taylor, she told this story at the student government meeting the next day, and not one person raised opposition to her resolution.
Taylor said she hopes that sharing her experiences in the pro-life movement will encourage others to get involved as well.
She said the backlash is all worth it when working toward saving the lives of the unborn.
MORE: Princeton students host musical titled ‘To All the Babies I’ve Killed Before’
IMAGE: Courtesy of Lydia Taylor
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