Videos and images are powerful tools for explaining the humanity of the preborn. Several Students for Life displays include video components, like a former abortionist explaining how abortions are done.
Your Students for Life group can host a Pro-Life Video Booth using a wide variety of different videos. Below are some sample ideas:
- Abortion Procedures (non graphic)
- Fetal Development Videos
- National Geographic Fetal Development Video
- Miracle of Life – 9 Months in 4 Minutes
- Fertilization
- Pro-Life Replies to Pro-Choice Arguments
You can find many more high-quality pro-life videos on the YouTube channels and Facebook pages of pro-life organizations. Just spend some time looking around and choose a relatively short video (four minutes or less) that addresses a pro-life topic that your group wants to dialogue about.
Not much preparation or materials are required, so a Students for Life group of any size can organize this event easily. The only materials you need are the video of your choice, a table, and laptop(s) or a projector. Bonus tip: consider offering a little incentive for watching your video (like a food item or $1)!
There are 2 ways SFLA recommends that you can complete this project on campus. You can use multiple laptops to show the videos as students pass by or project the videos (sound not needed) on a side of a campus building on a busy evening.
1. Choose a date and time for your pro-life video booth.
- Choose a day on which your campus is most busy: during the evening for a projection display or during the day for a computer display.
- If doing a video projection, choose a time in the evening when there will be both adequate darkness and heavier traffic through campus. OR choose a time of day that also accomplishes the goals of high visibility and traffic for your project.
2. Reserve a location for your event.
- Choose an area on campus with the most student traffic, such as in front of the dining hall or student center, etc.
- Reserve the area through the administration. Request an area that accommodates a table to hold either several laptops or a projector. If you are using a projector, make sure you choose a spot at which you can project an image onto a building, sheet, or screen with good visibility.
- Let Students for Life know if your school refuses to reserve your space for any reason.
3. Reserve a table and secure other equipment.
- Reserve a table to hold either your projector or as many laptops as you plan to use to show the videos.
- Secure some laptops to play the videos from OR secure a projector and accessories, which you may be able to rent from your school library.
- Make sure you have a close-by power source, extension cables, and even a power-strip for multiple computers.
- If you do not have a good building surface for projecting, get a large white sheet to hang on a building or other large structure.
- If you are doing your booth in the daytime on computers, you may want to construct a source of shade for better visuals off a computer.
4. Sign people up to run the booth.
- There should always be a couple people from your group running the display. You want enough people to have conversations and make sure no materials are stolen. One person per laptop is a good rule of thumb.
- There should be additional help to sign people up for your group email and meeting updates.
- Someone should always have a camera/phone on hand to record any vandalism or inappropriate acts towards your display and/or members.
- Invite lots of people to attend a booth/projection, as a crowd will draw even more people out of interest.
5. Be prepared with literature.
- Have handouts with factual information relevant to the topic of your chosen video. Students for Life can help with this, if needed.
- Have information available on a local PRC and post-abortive material and references.
- Have your group information ready to hand out so you can recruit new students to your meetings and events.
- It would also be wise to have on hand a copy of any communications with the administration allowing you to have your display.
6. Prepare your team!
- Make sure your members are all prepared to explain the content of your video as well as general apologetics training, as any number of abortion-related questions may come up as a result of your display.
Need help organizing a pro-life video booth event? Contact your SFLA Regional Coordinator at [yourstate]@studentsforlife.org.