New curriculum trains high schoolers in pro-life apologetics

As debates around abortion continue to intensify in a post-Roe America, a new high school curriculum is aiming to transform how young people engage in those conversations. The Equipped for Life Academy, developed by the pro-life organization Equal Rights Institute, is designed to equip students to understand and defend the pro-life position and to do so with empathy and a commitment to respectful dialogue.

Specifically created for religious high school settings — including Christian and Catholic schools, youth groups, confirmation classes, and homeschool co-ops — the apologetics program teaches students to respond thoughtfully to difficult pro-choice arguments. 

According to the academy’s website, the curriculum is tailored to engage students regardless of where they currently stand on the issue: “pro-life,” “pro-choice,” “I don’t know,” or “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Emily Geiger, director of education and outreach for the Equal Rights Institute, explained that the curriculum recognizes that not all students begin with a firm pro-life stance. 

“We’re teaching students how to think about the abortion issue well,” she said in a Jan. 2 interview with Pregnancy Help News. “How to have good dialogs with people who disagree with you about anything.” 

The approach is meant to shape not only how students engage with others but also how they reflect on their own beliefs in an increasingly polarized culture, Geiger explained.

The academy emphasizes the need for proactive formation as students are increasingly immersed in pro-choice messaging from peers and influencers. 

“[High schoolers] are bombarded by pro-choice culture,” the website states, “with classmates and influencers demanding them to conform to their beliefs.” 

Rather than retreat from the conversation, the program urges young people to step into it prepared.

What sets the curriculum apart, Geiger said, is its emphasis on relational dialogue over combative debate. 

“We specialize in understanding the modern, young pro-choice person,” she noted. “The truth about abortion doesn’t change, but how we communicate that truth can.”

The curriculum incorporates elements of prayer and spiritual formation alongside its educational content and offers both Catholic and Protestant editions. Each lesson includes guided prayer, and the first session draws on Colossians 4:5–6 to emphasize gracious and wise communication.

“We deliberately teach them the secular way of thinking about it first to understand why you don’t have to be religious at all to believe this,” Geiger explained. “But then also, by the way, our faith does back this up.”

The Catholic edition is included on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Conformity Review Listing of Catechetical Texts and Series and is aligned with the Cardinal Newman Society’s curriculum standards and the National Catholic Educational Association’s National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools.

Describing the curriculum’s impact, one instructor called it “a thorough, intentional, and graciously bold approach to teaching the next generation how to talk about the issue of abortion.”