Launched in 2025, the scholarship was created to invest in the next generation of pro-life leaders by recognizing students who demonstrate strong academic achievement, Christian character, and a clear commitment to defending the sanctity of human life.

Applicants were required to submit three letters of recommendation, high school transcripts, and an original essay responding to the prompt: “Is it ethical for Christians to advocate for laws that restrict abortion?”

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

According to PULSE Life Advocates, 40 applications were reviewed by a six-member committee through a three-phase evaluation process. After the second phase, six finalists were selected for additional review by a separate three-member team.

The first phase of scoring focused on application completeness, faith and character references, community involvement, and academic excellence. The second and third phases evaluated the submitted essays for alignment with pro-life beliefs, depth of reasoning, persuasiveness, biblical integration, clarity, and authenticity.

[Click here to subscribe to Pregnancy Help News!]

Organizers said the quality of submissions exceeded expectations, making the final decision especially difficult.

Parlee ultimately stood out for both her academic accomplishments and the strength of her pro-life convictions.

She holds a cumulative GPA of 4.5 and has been active in athletics, school leadership, and community organizations. A classically trained violinist, she also volunteers regularly and has built her own photography business while completing high school.

This fall, she plans to attend Hillsdale College, where she will pursue a bachelor’s degree in politics with a minor in journalism.

Her letters of recommendation highlighted both her academic excellence and her unwavering commitment to life.

One recommender noted that as a freshman, “her paper was remarkable enough to be featured in a pro-life publication.” Another wrote that she is “one of the greatest students to ever graduate from our institution.” A third shared, “Lydia and I have had many conversations over the past few years that have demonstrated her deep convictions for the sanctity of life, not only for the unborn, but also for all human beings made in the image of God.”

Her winning essay reflected those convictions from beginning to end.

Parlee argued that abortion is not only a political issue, but a moral and biblical one requiring Christian engagement. She challenged the idea that believers should avoid influencing public policy, writing that laws themselves reflect moral standards and that Christians should not remain passive when human life is at stake. She pointed to Scripture’s call to “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves” and framed advocacy for the unborn as a necessary responsibility for Christians.

Drawing comparisons to past moral atrocities, including the Holocaust, she urged Christians to remember history and defend the vulnerable rather than remain silent in the face of injustice. She wrote that “it can only ever be right to restrain evil, and promote good among fellow citizens,” arguing that protecting unborn children is both an ethical and biblical duty.

Parlee concluded her essay with this statement:

“It is time for Christians to decide that they care more about what God considers evil than how the world defines it, that they fear the consequences of disobeying a Holy God than of opposing a hostile culture.”

PULSE Life Advocates said her essay fully met the criteria established by the committee and exemplified the scholarship’s mission to equip and encourage future pro-life advocates.

Her full winning essay is available on the PULSE Life Advocates website.

As the first recipient of the scholarship, Parlee represents the kind of conviction, excellence, and courage PULSE hopes to support for years to come.

LifeNews Note: Andrea Trudden serves as the Vice President of Communications & Marketing at Heartbeat International, overseeing the public presence of the organization and its network of more than 3,600 pregnancy help organizations worldwide. This column originally appeared at Pregnancy Help News.

The post Christian Teen Wins Pro-Life Essay Contest With Excellent Paper appeared first on LifeNews.com.

The biggest change in Bill 18 ends the eligibility of non-terminally-ill patients to be MAIDed (known as Track 2). Among the provisions of Bill 18 (“Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act”), as summarized by the government:

Eligibility in Alberta to individuals 18 and over with capacity to make their own health care decisions whose natural death has been determined by a physician or nurse practitioner as being reasonably foreseeable, also known as Track 1 MAID, meaning that it is likely to happen within 12 months.

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

That’s still as loose as loose can be. Doctors can’t predict the time of death that precisely so far out but rely on probability statistics that do not reflect the patient’s unique circumstances.

But a take-back is a take-back. Going forward, the non–terminally ill, people with disabilities, and others who do not have a terminal prognosis will no longer be eligible to be euthanized. That could save some lives.

The new law makes it very clear that MAID is prohibited for “individuals under 18 years old; for persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness; for advance requests; and for individuals without the capacity to make their own health-care decisions.”

And no more propagandizing for euthanasia in hospitals and other medical facilities, as the law “restrict[s] the public display of MAID information, such as posters, within health-care facilities.”

Moreover, the bill provides real conscience protections for doctors, hospices, and other medical facilities that do not wish to participate in the killing of patients. “Under the provincial MAID legislation physicians and nurse practitioners have the right to refuse to conduct MAID assessments or provide MAID in Alberta.” Also, “certain types of health-care facilities have a right to refuse to allow MAID assessment or provision on their premises. This includes allowing these facilities to create an ‘exclusion zone’ of 150 metres around their premises in which MAID services would not be permitted.”

The new law does require that the patient be told where more information on being made dead can be found. But it does not require an “effective referral,” that is, to a doctor known to be willing to kill.

A total ban on euthanasia would of course be preferable. But this bill is for the better and probably represents all that can be done politically at this time. Good for Alberta.

Now for a dose of pessimism. I am not sure what the federal government will or can do, but I don’t expect it to do nothing. I doubt whether this law will pass legal muster under the Canadian Supreme Court’s radical ruling that led to this mess in the first place. From the 2015 Carter v. Canada decision (my emphasis):

Criminal laws against assisted suicide] unjustifiably infringes s-7 of the Charter and are of no force or effect to the extent that they prohibit physician-assisted death for a competent adult person who (1) clearly consents to the termination of life and (2) has a grievous and irremediable medical condition (including an illness, disease or disability) that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition.

Notice, the court said nothing about a terminal-illness requirement but included people with disabilities, chronic conditions, or an “illness,” which could include those with mental illnesses.

Indeed, the ruling was even broader than those words suggest. For example, a treatable condition can qualify as “irremediable” if the patient chooses not to pursue available medical remedies. “‘Irremediable,’ it should be added, does not require the patient to undertake treatments that are not acceptable to the individual.”

In other words, an “irremediable” condition that permits life-termination may actually be wholly remediable, except that the patient would rather die than receive care.

Still, let’s be of good cheer. This is the first time that I can recall any jurisdiction passing a significant statutory pullback from assisted suicide or euthanasia after it became legal. In itself, that is worth celebrating.

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.

The post One Canadian Province is Fighting Canada’s Euthanasia Agenda appeared first on LifeNews.com.

The payment caps a nine-year legal battle in which a federal jury found the carrier violated her rights to religious liberty and free speech.

Charlene Carter, who worked 21 years as a flight attendant, was terminated in 2017 after she sent graphic anti-abortion messages to leaders of the Transport Workers Union Local 556. The messages protested the union’s support for the 2017 Women’s March, a radical pro-abortion event which was linked to Planned Parenthood.

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

Carter had resigned from the union in 2013 over religious differences but was still required to pay agency fees.

She sued both Southwest Airlines and the union, arguing the firing retaliated against her pro-life convictions. A federal jury in 2022 agreed, ruling that the airline and union violated her rights under federal law.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision.

U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr ordered Southwest to reinstate Carter and pay her more than $810,000 in damages, including about $150,000 in back pay. The judge also required the airline to notify employees of their rights against religious discrimination.

In 2023, Starr held Southwest in contempt, saying the carrier “flaunted the court’s original order by twisting words” in its employee notice.

Today, Southwest satisfied the judgment by paying Carter $946,102.87, according to a court filing.

Carter welcomed the resolution as a victory for religious liberty.

“Today is a victory for freedom of speech and religious beliefs,” she said. “Flight attendants should have a voice and nobody should be able to retaliate against a flight attendant for engaging in protected speech against her union.”

Southwest had defended the firing, saying Carter’s messages amounted to harassment. The airline told employees it “does not discriminate” and directed them to follow the same policy used in her case. The contempt finding also led to orders for three Southwest lawyers to complete religious-liberty training.

The case is not entirely resolved.

Contempt proceedings continue over the adequacy of Southwest’s court-ordered notice to its flight attendants.

Carter’s attorneys maintained throughout the litigation that her pro-life views are protected religious expression and that no employee should face retaliation for opposing the use of union dues for causes they find morally objectionable. The jury’s verdict and the airline’s payment affirm that position.

The post Southwest Airlines Pays Stewardess $1 Million After Firing Her for Being Pro-Life appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Several pro-life GA members came out before the day’s Session began to join with the crowd.  Del Karen Hamilton, (R), spoke on behalf of those brave legislators who have been defending innocent life throughout the year in the General Assembly despite huge opposition.

The peaceful Rally and March was conducted as always without incident through the streets surrounding the Capitol Square. Those who came were encouraged to take the energy of the day home and share with others the risks of the Unlimited Abortion Amendment and to tell them to VOTE NO when voting starts this Fall.

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

Unfair Redistricting Amendment Goes to Virginia Supreme Court

The vote on April 21 to gerrymander the U. S. Congressional District by forcing a new unwelcome State Constitutional Amendment on Virginia voters has been challenged and is currently awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court of Virginia. The day after the election that provided the “Yes” vote a very narrow victory, a court in Tazewell Virginia, heard a challenge to the vote that prevents the results from being certified until the Virginia Supreme Court hands down its ruling. The case was heard in the SCOVA on Monday April 27. No decision has yet been determined. Meanwhile there are four other legal challenges to the legitimacy of the vote that must make their way through the system.

VSHL waits hopefully that the results will preserve our current status and protect the districts that are currently held by four pro-life Representatives.

United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Restores Protective Regulation on Dangerous Abortion Drug.  

The ruling of the Court on May 1st applies to the distribution of the abortion drug Mifepristone which for the past few years since the Covid epidemic has been allowed under federal law to be distributed in the mail without any doctor examination, including here in Virginia. Without a doctor’s examination to verify a pregnancy it is possible that a woman who is not actually pregnant or who is experiencing an ectopic pregnancy may receive mifepristone and suffer dangerous, even life-threatening side effects.

Chemical Abortions have become the number one method of abortion in recent years.  The FDA is currently reviewing whether or not to restore the pre-Covid rules to the distribution of the drug. This is an important ruling that VSHL will watch carefully. Read more from NRLC HERE:

UPDATE!!! 

From National Right to Life as of Monday May 4^th:   “The U.S. Supreme Court today issued a temporary order allowing continued mail distribution of the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol while litigation proceeds. The order is set to expire within days as the Court considers next steps in the case.”

More information HERE
New case filed to challenge the language of the unlimited abortion Ballot

Last week a case focused on the deceptive language of the Ballot Measure create by the general assembly and signed by Gov. Spanberger in February for HJ1 and SJ1, the unlimited abortion amendment was filed in Tazewell Circuit Court by the Founding Freedoms law center. The intention is to ask the Court to rule on the ballot language as it does not accurately reflect what the amendment will do to abortion law in Virginia. They content that this language is deliberately unclear and will cause confusion among the voters. Let us hope that the case is successful and helps defeat passage at the polls.

The Founding Freedoms Law Center (FFLC), the legal arm of The Family Foundation of Virginia, one of the members of the state pro-life coalition, filed suit asking a Virginia court to declare that the proposed state constitutional amendment on “reproductive freedom,” set to appear on the November 3 ballot, violates the Virginia Constitution because the question put to voters is materially misleading. The suit also seeks a permanent injunction barring enforcement of the amendment if it is approved.

LifeNews Note: Olivia Gans is the director of the Virginia Society for Human Life.

The post Thousands of Pro-Life People Join Virginia March for Life appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Case in point, a recent Wall Street Journal story highlights a small handful of pro-life leaders criticizing President Trump over abortion pills, and yes, the movement should press any administration when unborn children and their mothers remain at risk. That’s called advocacy. But how quickly these well-meaning advocates forget that we can only have this conversation because Trump made the central victory possible. Without his Supreme Court appointments, Roe still stands, states remain powerless, and the abortion lobby still controls the law of the land.

Donald Trump did more to dismantle Roe, restrain abortion funding, protect conscience rights, and restore pro-life foreign policy than any president in modern history. Demand faster action on mifepristone. Demand stronger enforcement. Demand courage. But do not erase the man whose presidency gave the pro-life movement its greatest legal opening in half a century.

Start with the obvious but too quickly forgotten truth. President Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Those three justices joined the majority that overturned Roe v. Wade. Without those appointments, Dobbs does not happen. Without Dobbs, states do not regain authority to protect unborn children. Without Dobbs, every heartbeat law, every protective state law, every protective abortion law now saving lives remains buried under Roe’s judicial tyranny.

That alone places Trump in a category no other Republican president reached.

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

But Trump’s pro-life record did not begin or end with judicial appointments. In his first administration, he reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy into “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance,” blocking U.S. global health funds from subsidizing foreign organizations that perform or promote abortion as a method of family planning. In his second administration, he has already reinstated that policy again and expanded it further. The 2026 State Department rule states that the policy now reaches beyond global health assistance to all non-military foreign assistance, and it closes loopholes that allowed abortion advocacy to benefit from American taxpayer dollars.

That is not retreat. That is one of the most aggressive pro-life foreign-policy actions ever taken by an American president.

Trump also led the United States into the Geneva Consensus Declaration, which affirms that there is no international right to abortion; that abortion should not serve as a method of family planning; that nations retain sovereignty over abortion law; and that the child deserves special safeguards before as well as after birth. The United States spearheaded the declaration in 2020, rejoined it in 2025, and tied it directly to the expanded Mexico City Policy. In the hostile world of UN negotiations, that’s crucial. It tells pro-abortion governments and bureaucrats that they cannot rewrite human rights law to impose abortion on sovereign nations.

Domestically, Trump enforced the Hyde Amendment after the Biden administration tried to turn federal agencies into engines of abortion policy. National Right to Life praised Trump’s early second-term actions, including his order reversing Biden-era abortion directives, his work to stop Department of Defense abortion travel reimbursements, his move to stop VA hospitals from performing abortions, and his effort to stop HHS from paying for abortions for those who entered the country illegally. NRLC also credited him for restoring Title X funds to Oklahoma and Tennessee after Biden punished those states for refusing abortion referrals.

His first administration protected conscience rights, defended health care workers who refused to participate in abortion, fully enforced separate payment requirements for abortion coverage in Obamacare exchange plans, stopped federal funding of fetal tissue research, and issued an executive order reinforcing the duty to provide medical care or emergency transfer for infants in need, including premature or disabled newborns. He also became the first president in American history to attend the March for Life.

His second administration has continued that record. In January 2026, HHS ended the permitted use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions in agency-funded research. NIH likewise announced that its funds would no longer support research involving human fetal tissue from elective abortions, applying the policy across intramural and extramural NIH research. The administration also moved to protect conscience rights, reviewed abortion-related state funding conflicts, and proposed changes to bring Biden-era policies for unaccompanied minors back into compliance with Hyde.

None of this excuses delay on mifepristone. The abortion pill regime threatens both unborn children and their mothers. Mail-order abortion invites coercion, hides ectopic pregnancies, strips away in-person medical oversight, and turns bathrooms into abortion facilities. Pro-life voters have every right to expect the FDA, HHS, and DOJ to move with urgency. They should demand a full review of mifepristone’s safety, restore safeguards, end abortion-by-mail, and defend pro-life states whose laws abortion traffickers now try to evade.

But frustration must not become amnesia. The abortion industry wants pro-life Americans divided, demoralized, and politically homeless. The media wants a narrative of collapse. Pro-life activists should refuse both. We can press the administration hard on abortion pills while recognizing that both of Trump’s administrations have delivered judicial, domestic, and international victories the movement spent decades seeking.

The task now is not to discard the strongest pro-life president we’ve ever had. Dobbs opened the door. Hyde enforcement, Geneva Consensus, the Mexico City Policy, conscience protections, fetal tissue restrictions, Title X corrections, and Born-Alive protections moved the country toward life. The task now is that the administration must confront chemical abortion with the same resolve.

The unborn child does not need factional theater. The mother abandoned by abortion-by-mail does not need political scorekeeping. They need action. Trump has acted for life before, again and again.

Pro-life Americans should ask him to do it again, without apology, without delay, and without forgetting the record that brought us this far.

LifeNews.com Note: Raimundo Rojas is the Outreach Director for the National Right to Life Committee. He is a former president of Florida Right to Life and has presented the pro-life message to millions in Spanish-language media outlets. He represents NRLC at the United Nations as an NGO. Rojas was born in Santiago de las Vegas, Havana, Cuba and he and his family escaped to the United States in 1968.

The post President Trump’s Pro-Life Record is Not Perfect, But be Thankful for What He’s Done appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Since 2022, Arkansas law generally has prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother, and abortion facilities in the state have closed down. But data shows that Arkansans may be traveling out of state for abortions. We also know that abortionists in other parts of the country are shipping abortion drugs into Arkansas illegally.

That’s why Family Council has encouraged Arkansas’ lawmakers to provide grant funding for pregnancy help organizations across the state.

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

These pro-life charities give women real options besides abortion. That’s why a growing number of states provide these organizations with public funding.

This year, the Arkansas Legislature raised its Pregnancy Help Organization Grant fund from $2 million to $3.5 million.

Lawmakers approved the funding last Wednesday as part of the Department of Finance and Administration’s 2026-2027 budget for its Disbursing Officer, and Governor Sanders signed the budget proposal into law.

The measures makes it clear that “pregnancy help organizations” include nonprofit organizations that promote infant and maternal wellness and reduce infant and maternal mortality by:

• Providing nutritional information and/or nutritional counseling;
• Providing prenatal vitamins;
• Providing a list of prenatal medical care options;
• Providing social, emotional, and/or material support; or
• Providing referrals for WIC and community-based nutritional services, including but not limited to food banks, food pantries, and food distribution centers.

Abortionists and their affiliates are not eligible for grant funding.

Family Council is grateful to the General Assembly and Governor Sanders for approving this $3.5 million in grant funding to provide alternatives to abortion. This is money well spent. We look forward to seeing the state award the funds to pregnancy help organizations in the coming months.

LifeNews Note: Jerry Cox is the president of the Arkansas Family Council.

The post Arkansas Legislature Approves $3.5 Million to Help Pregnant Women appeared first on LifeNews.com.