A pro-life video that has gone viral led to the ban of Students For Life of America's TikTok account.
The Students for Life of America condemned TikTok on Wednesday for censoring their account without prior warning. SLFA's account was banned on April 25 for allegedly violating the social media platform's Community Guidelines Standards multiple times.
The violation pertained to a video the pro-life organization last uploaded to their account entitled, "The Most Epic Beatdown." The video was a clip taken during SFLA President Kristan Hawkin's "The Future Is Anti-Abortion" campus speaking tour, which already received two million views on YouTube. The clip presented a discussion on abortion logic between Hawkins and a pro-choice student from the University of Texas San Antonio. Yet only Tiktok, whose content has been predominantly pro-choice, is the only social media platform that booted the SFLA video.
Reacting to TikTok's censorship, Hawkins raised that SFLA was particularly targeted by the social media platform which obviously supports those who advocate abortion.
"If you're pro-life on Tik Tok's social media platform, you have a target on your back. There is no other explanation for why SFLA's account was recently banned after posting life-affirming content while abortion supporters continue to run rampant on the app. Tik Tok seems to be practicing corporate viewpoint discrimination," Hawkins said.
SFLA pointed out that the ban also resulted in 35,000 followers being stripped away from their organization when account managers appealed for the ban. The organization said it is probable that the Snowflake Coalition is afraid of having a real conversation, which could be seen in the video, that it was needed for TikTok to step in. TikTok did not even give SFLA the leeway of appealing prior to banning the account. It was just banned outrightly.
As per SFLA, TikTok has previously censored them by taking down a video for violating certain terms in the community guidelines. The video was then restored suddenly after SFLA reached out to the platform for an explanation. But it was not the same with the ban since it did not come with any warning or explanation.
In the video, the female student asked Hawkins about what she has often heard from the pro-life movement on life beginning at conception. The student compared that saying with what her handwritten poster stated, which is "life begins when you understand living women matter more than potential babies."
To which, Hawkins asked if it is a potential baby, what is then inside a woman's womb. The student referred to it as a fetus, which she defined as a mere clump of cells. Hawkins pressed if the fetus was living, and the student responded that it was not.
"How can it grow if it is not living?" Hawkins raised.
"Actually, that's like saying if an acorn is a tree," the student rebutted.
"When does a fetus become living?" Hawkins continued.
"Uhm, that's actually the question, but that line--"
"Oh, yeah, of course, you don't know it. It's living," Hawkins responded sternly.
That's when the debate heightened. Other pro-choice students from the crowd started raising their voices against Hawkins telling her to let the student speak. While the student, already stumped and emotional, raised that Hawkins was actively denying Science. But when Hawkins asked what Science she denied, the student tried to avert the question by directing the SFLA president's attention to a set of posters they have. Hawkins didn't let the student go and returned the discussion back to the issue of what Science did she deny.
The student finally said that Hawkins denied Science by stating it is a child inside of the womb when it is just a clump of cells. To which, Hawkins quickly pointed out that she is a clump of cells herself and asked back what makes her different. The student retorted that she was born.
Hawkins was quick to raise when then do they say that a "clump of cells" is already living. The students raised when it is already sustainable, which the SFLA president further asked to be defined. However, the student did not have a response and looked to her companions for an answer. At that time, Hawkins cited that newborns are not sustainable themselves and need someone to assist them to live. She calmly posed a rhetorical question to the student on newborns not being worthy of life.
This eventually got to the student, who appeared to be fired up in realizing that she has lost the logic of her claims, that she asked why her mother and a generation afterward still fight for the "basic human right to have an abortion, to have a choice."
"The reason we're still having the question is because some people don't want to accept the natural consequences of heterosexual sex being inconvenienced by another human life and want to selfishly choose to end human life in order to have their whims met, that's why you're still arguing it," Hawkins ended.
