Emily Ranschaert

Emily Ranschaert, a homeschooled senior, was honored with the 2023 Grand Rapids Right to Life Prolife Youth Award. Ranschaert won a $500 scholarship and was nominated for Right to Life of Michigan’s statewide award.

Applicants for the award were required to write a short essay on what this generation can do to promote a positive prolife message and to list their prolife involvement during their high school years.

In her essay, Ranschaert explained, “Our current generation has the lowest respect for human life of any before us. In abortion debates among teens, flippant remarks such as ‘I wish I had been aborted’ are common. We are losing the desire to protect life, live life at all. In our day-to-day lives, the biggest, most important thing we can do is be witnesses to the value of life, show that it is worth living, that it is true, good, and beautiful.”

With her prolife involvement, Ranschaert participated in the High School Oratory Contest for four years, attended the March for Life on a Grand Rapids Right to Life bus trip, attended the 2022 Leadership for Life Base Camp, and gave her award-winning speech at a Focus on Life Benefit Dinner.

After graduation, Ranschaert plans to study acting at John Paul the Great Catholic University.