Bridging the Gap at U of I

Last Tuesday Illini Collegians for Life (ICFL), the pro-life group at U of I Urbana-Champaign, hosted a Pregnancy Resource Forum. I was involved in planning this and Students for Life of Illinois co-sponsored the event. I will provide ongoing updates on this because the results of the forum still need to be compiled and implemented. It seemed to go very well and many of us learned about resources offered by the University and the community that we had no idea existed. The next step is to consolidate this information and make it easy for students to access.It is my hope that more campuses in Illinois can make positive progress in bridging the gap through events like this. If you are interested in hosting at PRF or another similar event, please contact us!Below is an excerpt from a column written in the student paper, the Daily Illini. It was written by Brenda Zylstra, an officer of ICFL."Thirty-five years ago the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision, effectively legalizing abortion in the United States. Instead of being the final answer to the abortion question, Roe remains the most disputed and attacked Supreme Court decision of all time. It has become a rallying cry for various political factions and the quintessential political litmus test. The oft-quoted adage of today's politics - that polarization has drastically increased as middle ground has wilted away - can find no better example than the pro-life/pro-choice firestorm surrounding Roe. Common ground is impossible, unthinkable and not even a consideration.I suggest it's time we reconsidered.Tusday night the Illini Collegians for Life, a pro-life RSO, of which I am a member, is hosting a Pregnancy Resource Forum. The PRF is a concept developed by Feminists for Life of America. For more than a decade FFLA has helped colleges across the country - Harvard, UC Berkeley, Vanderbilt and dozens of others - to enact this program, designed to ease the burdens on pregnant and parenting college students. Instead of stoking the fires of Roe, the PRF circumvents what we cannot agree on and focuses on what we must, making our campus a friendly and accessible place for students with children."Read the full article here.