PORT ST. LUCIE | Speaking Sept. 25, 2025, at St. Bernadette Parish in Port St. Lucie, Amelia “Mia” Akins, a campus formation coordinator with Students for Life of America, detailed the scope of her national organization.
Various offshoots of Students for Life, she said, try to influence public policy, offer help to pregnant and parenting students, organize an annual event, build abortion-free cities, train future pro-life leaders and reach out to Catholics. But the main focus of the organization is forming pro-life student groups, Akins said at the Culture of Life breakfast.
“We are the largest youth-focused pro-life organization in the country,” she said. “We have almost 1,600 student groups. We are only, I think, 12 schools away from hitting 1,600. That includes high schools and colleges primarily, but we also have middle schools and home school groups, as well as professional schools like law and medical schools.”
A native of Douglasville, Georgia, and current resident of Miami, Akins was invited to speak by St. Bernadette’s Respect Life ministry. She helped found the Students for Life group in 2022 at Florida International University, from which she graduated with a degree in biology. Her objective is to help form and support student groups and prepare the next generation of pro-life leaders.
Building on five pillars (“effective education, industry impact, public policy, rapid response and supportive services”), Students for Life aims to “recruit, train and mobilize the pro-life generation to abolish abortion,” according to its website.
Attending the breakfast were some local students interested in forming Students for Life groups. Luis Gonzalez, Respect Life ministry coordinator at St. Bernadette, said he supports the efforts “because the future of the pro-life movement is with the young people. If we don’t bring the young people into a positive culture of life, we will fail. So, that’s why it’s so important to me, our Respect Life Ministry, to have these young people. As a matter of fact, they are members of our Respect Life ministry, actual members, and they are wonderful kids. We’re so blessed to have them.”
Akins was supposed to speak Sept. 26 at the 17th annual Rosary Prayer Service at St. Helen in Vero Beach but cancelled because of a family emergency. Her next local appearance is set for Wednesday, Oct. 8, from 10 a.m. to noon at a Culture of Life breakfast in the Cathedral of St. Ignatius Loyola’s Family Life Center in Palm Beach Gardens.
For information on Respect Life ministry in the Diocese of Palm Beach, email Deanna Herbst-Hoosac at dherbst@ccdpb.org, call 561-360-3330 or follow on Facebook at Respect Life Ministry Catholic Charities Palm Beach. For more about Students for Life of America, go to https://studentsforlife.org, or connect with Akins at aakins@studentsforlife.org.
