WASHINGTON -- A campus group called Students for Life is working hard to make sure abortion funding doesn't get a major boost from health care reform.
    
Members from many of its 500-plus chapters gathered in Washington, D.C., for its first ever banquet, March 11.

The banquet was intended to celebrate such deeds as starting up 523 prolife groups on campuses across the country. Executive Director Kristin Hawkins said Planned Parenthood has far less than half that many pro-choice campus groups.

"So we've blown them out of the water," she said. 

Hawkins said the organization right now is weighing in on the Washington war over health care reform: Fighting to keep taxpayer funding of abortion out of any final bill.

But according to keynote speaker Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., that's just one struggle in a time of great adversity for prolife forces.

"These are difficult times for the life movement with a president who is probably the most pro-abortion president in history," Franks said.
    
Still, Franks told the group of prolife young people he believes they will ultimately triumph.

"They have survived Roe vs. Wade as it were and they have lived in the time when Roe vs. Wade was doing its worst to America," he said. "And I'm convinced they're going to be the ones that will rise up and see it fall." 

Hawkins said young people are uniformly nervous about health care reform because it will mandate they buy health insurance or face penalties, maybe even jail time.
    
However, she said prolife students in particular look at reform plans and see the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v Wade.

That's a major reason to hold the banquet, "and talk about where we're going in the future and how we're going to fight this administration," Hawkins said.