Students For Human Life anticipates a rewarding year
Senior Taylor Damberg serves as co-president of Students For Human Life along with fellow senior Em Paquette.
October 15, 2018
BSM, as a Catholic school, creates many opportunities for students to discuss and learn about social justice and life issues. One of the most prominent ways is through the club Students for Human Life, which is advised by teacher Mr. Matt Brounstein and led by co-presidents Em Paquette and Taylor Damberg.
The program, as the name suggests, covers a variety of life issues from abortion to human rights violations. “Whenever there is a clear-cut instance of life being lost or about to be lost due to injustice, that’s our main concern. Also helping those who are making life-affirming decisions to try and support them,” Brounstein said.
However, the club mostly focuses on abortion. “I hope to broaden it a bit more because the sanctity of human life goes beyond just abortion and [there are] so many different facets to it that I think we could be doing a better job at addressing some of them,” Damberg said.
The club has also engaged with the school and wider community in other ways throughout the years, most notably, visiting the Capitol. “We went there last spring, super cool, we actually had the opportunity to lobby some of our local representatives, meet them at the Capitol and talk to them, and just become more educated on legislation surrounding specifically abortion,” Damberg said.
Members of Students for Human Life are passionate about life issues for various reasons. “For some reason, something’s really fired them up about it, maybe it’s a news story that they read when they learned about a particular issue, sometimes it’s people that they know personally who have been affected by something. A lot of them really feel that these issues are literally about life and death, and it bothers them in their conscience,” Brounstein said.
The beliefs of the club members, more often than not, align with the official teachings of Catholicism. The strong pro-life stance that the Church holds is seen as severe by a sizable part of the BSM community, so the club often has to address those who disagree with them. “The group tries to approach it with kindness–I think that’s the best way–and a willingness to listen, because everyone has a voice,” Brounstein said.
Overall, Students for Human Life is an integral part of our community that helps facilitate solidarity and understanding. It plans to hold a debate this semester, which hopefully many people will attend. “You should never be afraid of a conversation when both sides are honestly trying to seek out what’s true,” Brounstein said.
