Bryan Kemper, founder of Rock for Life, Stand True and the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity, took the stage Wednesday, Sept. 19 at Eastern Michigan University’s Students for Life discussion titled “Promoting a Culture of Life.”
Kemper is a noted pro-life activist who has spoken at a number of colleges, including Harvard and Princeton.
“Now that I’m presenting at Eastern, I know I made it,” Kemper said at the beginning of the event.
The presentation started with a behind-the-scenes look at Kemper’s life prior to becoming a pro-life activist.
“The first nine months were rough. My mom tried to get an abortion when she had me, and the doctors were close to proclaiming me clinically dead as an infant,” Kemper said.
The discussion continued with the struggles Kemper faced with bullying during his junior year.
“I left class five minutes early since I was often severely hurt by my peers,” he said.
In his presentation, he revealed that he dropped out of school in the 11th grade and joined the miltary.
“I joined the army in hopes of fixing my life and was kicked out six months later for attempting suicide,” he said.
Kemper said he was fortunate to survive the amount of drugs he took at a Grateful Dead concert in his twenties, because he said he should not be alive today from what he did that night.
However, that night had a major impact on Kemper’s life and gave him a newfound passion for life that he never had before.
“I didn’t like Christians in the past because they would always tell me that I was evil, or that I was going to go to hell,” Kemper said.
However, that all changed when a doctor told him he was valuable in God’s eyes.
The presentation then shifted focus to the discussion of whether or not a child in the womb is a person.
Kemper used the Holocaust in his presentation as an example by comparison.
“Children don’t have a voice so they can’t cry for help, which is why we need to speak up for them and say more,” Kemper said. “Over 55 million children have been killed by choice through surgical abortion. It is time for us to be a voice, because people who know the truth have been silent for too long.”
Students for Life member Delia Bryan said the hope for this event was to inform and to spark a dialogue.
“To push the message of pro-life in a prominent place for campus discussion and to ultimately inspire a reaction from students to join the activism efforts,” Bryan said.
EMU student Christina Wawrowski said she is a supporter of the pro-life stance.
“Even if you don’t want a baby, there are people out in this world that can’t have babies and they would be happy to provide for the child and love the child as their own,” Wawrowski said.
EMU student Jessica Holder said she feels very strongly about pro-choice and the freedom for individuals to choose for themselves.
“Because rape and abused victims should have a choice. All people should have the right to choose whether to keep the child or not,” Holder said.
EMU’s Students for Life President Greg Champion said he really became involved in promoting the pro-life message in 2010 during his sophomore year in college.
“Family was a major influence for me in being supportive of pro-life and … I really became passionate about supporting the pro-life cause,” Champion said.
The Students for Life organization’s website says they are are “committed to saving lives threatened by induced abortion, euthanasia and the destruction of human embryos for research.”
