By Raimundo Rojas, Outreach & Events Director
Every year, something remarkable happens inside the rooms of the National Right to Life Conference. A student walks to a microphone and begins to speak. They don’t lecture. They don’t read from a script. They deliver something they created, something rooted in research, shaped by personal belief, and sharpened by conviction. Their words come fast, confident, clear. In seven minutes or less, they command the room.
This is the heart of the National Right to Life Oratory Contest.
What began as a simple idea, to give high school students a chance to speak on the issues of abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide, has grown into a defining feature of the annual conference. Students come prepared, having competed in local and state rounds. They’ve practiced in living rooms, church basements, and school libraries. Some have already spoken in front of hundreds. Others are facing their first real audience.
What unites them is not experience, but purpose.
These students are not simply reciting pro-life talking points. They’re building arguments, telling stories, and revealing the moral clarity of their generation. They are not just tomorrow’s leaders. They are leading now. The national winner receives a one-thousand-dollar prize and speaks at the closing gala of the National Right to Life Conference, but the impact reaches further. Contestants return home with confidence, direction, and a sense of belonging to a movement much larger than themselves.
In a similar spirit, the National Right to Life Essay Contest has been shaping young writers in classrooms and kitchen tables across the country. Students in grades seven through twelve sit down to answer a single question: Why are you pro-life?
The question is simple. The answers are anything but.
In essays ranging from 300 to 500 words, these students dig deep. Some tell personal stories. Others cite research. Some write as future doctors, teachers, or parents. All of them approach the topic with a seriousness that defies their age. They understand what’s at stake. And they don’t waste words.
The contest is divided into two categories. Students in grades seven through nine enter the junior division. Students in grades ten through twelve compete in the senior division. Each category has a national winner who receives a five-hundred-dollar prize. More importantly, winning essays are published and shared, allowing students to influence others with their writing.
What makes both contests successful is not just the talent of the students, though there is plenty of that. The success comes from the structure. From the preparation. From the way these contests ask young people not to memorize, but to think. Not to echo, but to speak. Not to perform, but to persuade.
It also succeeds because these students know that what they say matters. The adults around them take their work seriously. They listen. They publish their essays. They applaud their speeches. These are not symbolic gestures. They are invitations into the public square.
In the end, what the Oratory and Essay Contests offer is not just recognition, but formation. They help shape articulate, passionate, morally grounded advocates who are ready to lead wherever they go. Some of them will become lawyers, nurses, teachers, pastors, and parents. All of them will carry their pro-life convictions into the world a little stronger, a little louder, and a little more prepared.
This is how a movement grows, not just through legislation or litigation, but through the quiet work of preparing the next generation to speak the truth and speak it well.
Visit www.nrlc.org/