Three students reflect on their experience at the Texas Rally for Life

First-year students from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Newman Center, Nya Hernandez and Therese Armstrong, together with sophomore, Isabela Esquivel, boarded the bus from St. John Paul II High School to join 40 youth, young adults and the SOLT sisters, heading to Austin for the Texas Rally for Life on Jan. 28. They had decided to participate after seeing the diocesan Instagram post about it.

When asked why they attended, Nya immediately responded, “I think it’s important for us young people to go because we’re the next generation, and we need to fight for something as important as this topic of unborn lives.” For Therese, it was important to “represent life, not abortion and stand up for it.” They were impressed by the homily given by Bishop Joe Vasquez on this during the mass in San Jose Catholic Church in Austin at the start of the day.

After mass, starting from the side of the state capitol, they peacefully marched with people from all over Texas, praying the Rosary as they walked. They finished the march with a rally in front of the capitol with pro-life speakers giving their testimonies. Therese noted, “It was cool to see everyone gathered, supporting the same thing, and seeing how many were there.” She feels strongly that this physical presence is so important to counteract the media’s skewed coverage of this issue.

During the march, all three students volunteered to hand out rosaries and pro-life posters. When Nya posted a photo of herself with the sign, “Abortion hurts women,” she immediately received negative comments from her peers, claiming that as a pro-lifer, she actually “hates” women. Initially shocked by such responses, she later thought, “I can understand that not everyone will want to see the truth about this because they have been told the opposite for years because of the ruling of Roe v. Wade.”

Isabella, too, received similarly derogatory comments, one from a classmate who wrote, “pro-life is pro-death.” She simply smiled and said, “As a Catholic, we’re not being mean. We love these people anyways. But he needs to get the facts.” In the end, she saw that she got 45 likes.

All three laughed off such comments saying that people “clearly do not do their research.” They feel that since the overturning of that Supreme Court ruling, people can finally get down to the real work of advocating for support for the unborn, the care of women and offering the resources necessary to raise children. These students truly consider themselves the “post-Roe v. Wade generation.” As Therese concluded, “we can continue to work for the pro-life movement every day by seeing the value behind every human life.”