A young, vibrant, staunchly pro-life woman is often like a unicorn to the general public — a mythical creature. To those of us in the pro-life movement, young pro-life women are not only incredibly admirable, they’re our future. Evita Duffy is one such woman. Following in the footsteps of her parents, Shawn and Rachel Campos-Duffy, Evita is a strong and outspoken voice for the unborn and all those threatened by the culture of death.
Evita is the oldest of nine children, with the youngest being her little sister, Valentina, who has Down Syndrome. She is a junior at the University of Chicago and is also an intern with The Federalist. In addition, along with some friends, Evita spearheaded a new newspaper at the University of Chicago called The Chicago Thinker, which brings together many young, Conservative voices.
Evita begins the episode by emphasizing how much she admires her parents. She says that their bravery in allowing her youngest sister to live continues to inspire her, and the sacrifices her parents have made to welcome little Valentina into their family and into the world are an example to all.
For example, her father was running for office when they received the news of their youngest daughter’s diagnosis. Evita’s father, Representative Sean Duffy of Wisconsin, decided to step down to welcome the newest life into the family.Their family reaped enormous blessings from this sacrifice, however, with the joy that Evita’s sister has brought into their lives.
Life Chat host, Dr. Steve Jacobs, goes on to ask Evita about the work she is doing at the University of Chicago. Evita explains that her name first came into the spotlight about a year ago when she created what some considered a controversial sign at a student event. The students were asked to fill in the blanks: “I vote because ___.” Evita’s sign read, “I vote because the Coronavirus won’t destroy America, but Socialism will.”
This statement blew up all over her college campus. Evita explains to Dr. Jacobs that students all over the campus were screenshotting pictures of her with the sign and making memes out of it. When Dr. Jacobs asks what Evita’s intent with that message was, Evita explains that she wanted, “Not to diminish the seriousness of the Coronavirus, but to point out that this [Socialism] is a very serious issue that is creeping up.”
The fact that this was not an “acceptable opinion” at her college really gave Evita pause, she remembers. She said that it was this incident that led her to write an op-ed and get it published in The Federalist. This event made it clear to her that “It’s obvious that there is a problem with socialism at this school based on the reaction I got from it [the sign].”
What happened after she put her opinion on that sign, Evita believes, was a warning from the school to other conservatives. “It was a warning to other conservatives that ‘You better not do what she did’” However, Evita took the high road. She said, “I didn’t fade out into obscurity, I started a newspaper with my friends.”
Something that both her parents have reiterated to her time and again in her life is, “If you’re getting a lot of hate, it probably means you’re saying something good.” This can apply to the pro-life movement as well as others that buck society’s current status quo, Evita believes.
Evita believes “the decline in morality in this country” is the real factor at play in all the opposition she has had to face at school. So much of what we are dealing with in our country, including the normalization of abortion even through the third trimester, would have been unthinkable one hundred years ago.
Dr. Jacobs asks Evita what she thinks we can do about this, and Evita emphasizes that the pro-life movement needs to be more united. She explains that the pro-choice movement is, unfortunately, much better than the pro-life movement at this so much of the time. “The pro-choice movement is largely very united…. When we have little factions of ‘I’m more pro-life than you’ factions popping up all over the country, that doesn’t help at all.”
We need to be united, because it will only be through a united front that we will have enough voices to win. Not only this, but integrating pro-life messages into our culture is something Evita is very passionate about. “Having movies with subtle pro-life messages… I mean these are things that are very important [to make a change].”
Evita Duffy is ready to fight for the lives of all innocent children, and for the freedom of speech in America. She is undaunted in her approach as well as articulate and passionate about equal rights for all. To learn more about Evita’s fight for life and freedom in American, you can listen to the full Life Chat podcast episode with Dr. Steve Jacobs here.