October 29, 2026
As Students for Life Action (SFLAction) students and activists protested outside CNN and Jubilee Media’s October 14th town hall event in Dallas, Texas, a conversation inside between the state’s Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico and a University of Dallas professor was about to go viral.
Dr. Jodi Hunt, a UD professor of applied ministry, and her students were invited to attend the town hall event and to share what was important to them and which of James Talarico’s policies and beliefs they disagreed with. Soon after completing the application, a CNN producer contacted Dr. Hunt to see if she would like to engage in a four-minute discussion with James Talarico on abortion.
Dr. Hunt detailed her interaction with James Talarico in a short take at America Magazine.
“I saw this as a great opportunity to share a view from a Catholic voter, one that I know many Catholics like me hold . . . I was certainly surprised to learn my quick exchange had gone viral,” wrote Dr. Hunt.
Dr. Hunt continued: “People across the country, Christian or not, who agreed with me and who didn’t were excited: Someone had finally shown the debate on abortion could be civil.”
The now-viral discussion was a short theological debate between James Talarico’s pro-abortion Presbyterian view against Dr. Hunt’s pro-life Catholic perspective.
James Talarico, known for claiming God is nonbinary and that both abortion and homosexuality are permissible despite copious Scripture to the contrary, has made attempts to moderate his image as the election grows closer. Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins published an op-ed in The Daily Wire on the subject not long before the UD town hall.
“Talarico is just the 2026 version of a decades-old Democratic problem,” wrote Hawkins. “And it’s hard to reclaim the faith conversation when your apologetics are about explaining why the Bible doesn’t mean what it says.”
Dr. Hunt touched on the same question in her conversation with James Talarico: how could she, an orthodox Catholic who unequivocally supports life, support a politician with his anti-life values?
After discussing his love of Pope Leo XIV and desire to lessen the number of abortions, James Talarico repeated his idea that “the Bible is silent on the issue of abortion.”
Dr. Hunt quickly countered his claim.
“The Bible is not silent on abortion. There is the Ten Commandments: ‘Thou shall not kill,” and as Catholics, we take great insult sometimes when it is spouted that way.”
As expected, no agreement was reached in their discussion. However, Dr. Hunt left with the hope that civil discussion between people with opposing ideologies was possible.
“We hear a political label, assume we understand everything about the person behind it and stop listening,” wrote Dr. Hunt. “We allow disagreement to replace encounter. Our public conversations become contests in which the objective is to win rather than to understand, persuade or seek the common good.”
Dr. Hunt wrote that the biggest lesson she took from the experience was that she could find common ground with pro-abortion figures, specifically on addressing the circumstances that push women to resort to abortion in the first place.
The conversation, however, did not make the professor waver in her pro-life values or her commitment to fighting for the lives of preborn children.
“My conversation with Mr. Talarico did not resolve our disagreement on abortion,” wrote Dr. Hunt. “I remain convinced that protecting [preborn] life is a fundamental moral responsibility.”
Students for Life has led the fight to make this the mission of the nation. For 20 years, the Pro-Life Generation has fought to make abortion both unavailable and unthinkable, changing both law and culture to respect life from womb to natural death.
This includes addressing the falsehoods spread by pro-abortion figures like James Talarico. Not only were Students for Life advocates at the town hall event, but they have begun flyering to 100 churches in James Talarico’s community, beginning with his own church. The Pro-Life Generation was also present at James Talarico’s Baylor University town hall event, where the candidate refused to take questions, and at the University of Texas at Tyler as part of our “Get Out the Pro-Life Vote Billboard Truck Tour.”
With the election days away, Students for Life has no plans to stop our lifesaving and mind-changing to end abortion in our lifetime.
Learn more about what is at stake for the pro-life movement in the midterms HERE.
READ MORE FROM STUDENTS FOR LIFE ABOUT FAITH IN POLITICS AND ADVOCACY:
El-Sayed and the Democrats Are Embracing Faith — As Long as It’s Not Biblical Christianity
STUNNING: 1 in 7 Christian Schools Connected to Abortion
Motherhood or a Career? Christian Women Don’t Have to Choose | Olivia D’Angelo at the Daily Wire