Riley Gaines never thought she’d be a public speaker or advocate for any issues, nor did she want to. Nonetheless, she said, she has been given a unique opportunity and with it a moral obligation to do her part.
Gaines, a 12x All-American swimmer for the University of Kentucky who was thrust into the spotlight for speaking out about a male swimmer with whom she and her teammates were forced to compete and share a locker room, gave the keynote address for the recent Students of Life of America National Pro-Life Summit.
The summit gathers hundreds of pro-life youth each year the day following the National March for Life in Washington D.C. to attend keynote presentations and breakout sessions.
Now an author, podcast host, and advocate for women’s safety, privacy, and equal opportunities, Gaines is also a new mother. She told the Students for Life crowd to be bold and courageous in speaking about abortion, and to push back on the notion that we shouldn’t talk about it truthfully.
Gaines also said that being a mother is the most rewarding thing she’s ever done.
Taking the stage for the Pro-Life Summit the day after the 53rd National March for Life, Gaines commended Vice President J.D. Vance for speaking clearly in his March for Life speech about God’s design for life and family, and about how babies are gifts and precious, and his discussing paganism, how the barbaric disregarding of children is equivalent to child sacrifice.
“I think over the past few years, national leaders, they view this issue as a nuanced one,” she said. “They kind of want to sit on the fence. They don't really want to fully dip into the water. Maybe put a toe in, but that's as far as they're willing to go.”
Calling abortion child sacrifice is “pretty extraordinary,” Gaines said. “I don't think it should be taken for granted.”
Pro-life advocates welcomed Vance’s remarks while also calling on the administration to do more to address chemical abortion drugs and expressing concern over recent comments by Trump about the Hyde Amendment.
Part of the Students for Life Pro-Life Summit each year is a presidential straw poll, offering a glimpse into the youth vote. Vance was this year's straw poll winner.
The pro-life movement is led by the grassroots, not D.C. polititicans
Gaines was unable to attend the March because of weather, but she watched coverage, and she also praised pro-life young people for being leaders in the movement.
“The most special part I noticed watching the footage I saw from yesterday was that it was a movement led by you all,” Gaines said. “As students, young people, not Washington, D.C. bureaucrats or politicians.”
“They weren't the ones holding the signs. They weren't the ones at the front,” she said. “No, it was you guys. And again, that's really, really special and powerful, and it takes courage to do that. So, you should be proud of yourselves.”
Gaines recapped her experience competing with and encountering a male swimmer while changing in the locker room, and how this led to her advocacy.
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“Now, let me tell you, I had every reason to not lend my voice to this issue,” she said, given that so few were willing to do so. The female swimmers were told they would lose scholarships, job opportunities, and friends, and that speaking out meant they were taking part in harmful or violent speech.
“We were terrified of using our voices,” Gaines said.
Despite this emotional manipulation, Gaines said she reached a point where she felt guilty for not speaking up.
“Those are the feelings I had, of sheer conviction, and responsibility, and guilt,” she said. “I understood finally, and I remember it as clear as day, that by me staying silent, I was just as bad as the people who created and enforced these policies.”
“I mean, participating in the farce, that wasn't making a better world for my little sister, who's still in high school, for the daughter that, at the time, I could only hope I would be blessed with one day,” she added.
Gaines said she learned some things using her voice over the past few years and wanted to share them with the Students for Life crowd.
The first one is that gender ideology is “an evil lie.”
“What a horrible message to send to anyone we should be telling people that they were born correct, and with purpose and intention, just as God created them, and how amazing is it that we have a creator who doesn't make mistakes?” she said.
“It's a line that's funded by and pushed by Planned Parenthood, by the way,” said Gaines. “Of course, I mean, nearly $800 million in federal funds annually. With that, they perform nearly 400,000 abortions annually. They promote gender ideology. They support the Democratic Party, politically.”
Planned Parenthood’s business pivot to offering “transition” treatment has played a part in the ongoing effort to defund the abortion giant.
Gaines went on to emphasize how the nation’s largest abortion provider is a “billion-dollar business,” doubling down on her criticism.
“A business, by the way, that acts as if they sell compassion,” she said. “No, that's not what they're selling. They sell convenience and violence.”
Tweet This: Planned Parenthood acts as if they sell compassion, when they sell convenience and violence - Riley Gaines
Gaines told the summit gathering that abortion is one of a few things more sinister than surgery to remove healthy body parts in answer to sex confusion.
She spoke as well about how language is manipulated to serve ideology, and that going along with this is neither compassion nor empathy.
“We hear words, like reproductive rights, and healthcare, freedom, and bodily autonomy, and choice,” Gaines said. “But these words that they use, they're not accidental, they're designed to soften reality.”
“Reproductive rights” never mentions the reproduction at that point has already occurred. Your reproductive rights were never harmed,” said Gaines. “Healthcare,” it's never explained how ending a life qualifies as care.”
“And “choice” that never acknowledges that the child had no choice at all, as a matter of fact,” she said.
When the truth is hard to defend, people tend to change the words, Gaines said, and this is the danger of that.
“When we accept manipulated language, we subconsciously accept manipulated morality,” she said.
If something is good, then it will survive honest and true language, she added.
Protecting life doesn't hold women back
“One more truth that I've learned over the past four months that our culture works overtime to attempt to deny, and that's the beauty of motherhood,” said Gaines.
She and her husband welcomed a baby girl almost four months prior.
“It has been the most magical and transformative thing that you could possibly experience as a woman, if you can, that you could,” said Gaines.
She said she loved going through pregnancy and even labor and delivery.
“It was awesome,” Gaines said. “It was so miraculous to hear that first cry, to understand what your body can endure, how it literally created life, brought life into the world.”
“A little tiny human; yes, fragile, yes, small, yes, dependent, but nonetheless, worthy,” she said. “One of the most amazing things.”
Motherhood is often portrayed as a limitation, she said, because it contradicts radical individualism.
“It demands sacrifice, yes, of course, it demands selflessness,” Gaines explained. “It reorders your priorities, sure, in ways that maybe threaten a culture that's obsessed with itself.”
She encouraged those present who hoped to be mothers one day to talk to a mom or your grandma in their life.
“I think you'll hear from them that motherhood, it doesn't erase women,” Gaines said. “Quite the contrary, it expands them. It deepens love. It sharpens purpose. It reveals strength that, at least speaking for myself, that I didn't even know I had.”
Tweet This: Motherhood, it doesn't erase women - Riley Gaines
“And I say that as an elite athlete, I would have considered myself as someone who could take on anything,” she added. “But now being a mom, it's the most rewarding thing that I've ever done.”
Gaines again referenced Vance’s March for Life address the day before, saying how society treats children as if they're burdens and will never understand what it means to flourish, and that a culture that devalues mothers will eventually devalue every single demographic.
“Protecting life, it doesn't hold women back,” Gaines stated. “It honors them, it acknowledges that women are capable of profound love, of courage, and resilience, and that is a truth that terrifies a culture that, again, is built on denial.”
Tweet This: Motherhood reveals strength that I didn't even know I had - Riley Gaines
You don't need a title to lead
She acknowledged that it was hard to be a young person right now, with all the chaos, and tragedies like Charlie Kirk being assassinated for the same views that they share.
“You're being targeted more aggressively than any generation before you,” said Gaines. “You’re told that freedom means avoiding responsibility, that children are obstacles to success, that motherhood is a burden, that fulfillment comes from self-centered autonomy, rather than sacrifice and love. You're taught that life is valuable only when it's convenient.”
And yet, this generation is most willing to challenge these narratives, she said, interested more in truth than slogans.
“And that's what makes you powerful,” said Gaines. “That is what I noticed yesterday, watching all of the videos that surface following the rallies, seeing 100,000 of you, walking the streets, the future of the pro-life movement, again, it doesn't belong to politicians or to courts alone.”
“It belongs to you all, to young people, young people who are willing to challenge the status quo,” she continued. “Young people who are willing to say, this isn't really adding up, or willing to say, this isn't actually compassionate.”
Gaines told the pro-life youth that they don't need a title to lead, or a platform to speak the truth.
“You don't need permission to stand for what's right,” Gaines said. “Your voice matters now, not someday in the near future, it matters now.”
Tweet This: You don't need permission to stand for what's right - Riley Gaines to the Students for Life Pro-Life Summit
Aside from losing a friend in Charlie Kirk, she said it was terrifying to potential gender ideology ties to his murder. She was 38 weeks pregnant when Kirk was killed. This initially made her vow she would never again step on a college campus.
“Understanding it could have been me, I felt I would never go back on a campus,” Gaines said. “I'm not proud of that.”
Then her daughter was born, she said, and she was ashamed of that feeling, because when looking at her daughter she was looking at that for which she is fighting.
“Yes, of course, we want to save our country,” said Gaines. “But I think the people in this room acknowledge that it's for the next generation. That's who we're fighting for.”
Push back on the idea of holding back
Gaines clarified that she was not fearless, and that having courage means having fear but still being willing to do the thing that you know to be right.
“So that's my message for you all,” she said, “is to be courageous. Be courageous, be bold.”
“And reject the notion, I’ve seen it online following yesterday, we need to stop talking about abortion. It's not good for the midterms. We just need to hold it back until then,” Gaines said.
“Push back on that,” she said.
There is speculation that the 2026 midterm elections will not go well for Republicans, and abortion will only compound that.
“Push back on the notion that we can't talk about this,” Gaines stated to the crowd. “We should talk about it.”
“We shouldn't whisper, we should yell about it,” she said. “Killing babies is bad. And if we aren't willing to say that out loud, for fear of political consequences, then you might as well just go ahead and wave your white flag.”
Gaines closed offering the young pro-life advocates some advice.
“You don't need to have every answer to speak the truth,” she said.
Gaines said she was scared to speak about abortion initially, because she didn’t feel like she had a rebuttal to every single thing and she shied away from the topic entirely.
“Conviction matters more than perfection,” she said.
“Secondly, don't wait to be fearless to speak out - because fear is a part of it, as I said - speak anyway,” she said.
“Third is to be calm, to be confident,” said Gaines. “You don't need to compromise on how you conduct yourself to be compassionate.”
Finally, she recommended to the young people present to find community, “because community allows you to have courage, and it is courage that multiplies when it's shared.”
You're never as alone as culture wants you to believe, she said.
“If you're criticized for standing up for life, understand this,” Gaines said, “being disliked for telling the truth is not a failure. It's often a sign that you're doing something right.”
