Pro-life students bring 200k baby socks to Congress to show number of babies aborted by Planned Parenthood each year

Pro-life students went to the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to deliver 196,543 baby socks representing the number of babies that have been aborted by Planned Parenthood each year.

"These socks represent all the women betrayed by the abortion industry and their preborn babies who will never be able to wear the baby socks because of Planned Parenthood," said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America (SFLA), according to World.

"This generation wants to defund Planned Parenthood. They expect our elected officials to keep the promises they made during the election," she continued.

Planned Parenthood reportedly aborted 323,999 babies in 2016, and SFLA intends to collect enough socks to represent each of the aborted babies.

The students were joined by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and representatives of other pro-life groups such as the Susan B. Anthony List and Americans United for Life at a rally where they urged lawmakers to defund the abortion provider.

Sasse said that people do not often realize the scale of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood.

"It's just a devastatingly large number, and we need to have images like this so that people start to reflect on the magnitude of the suffering that's happening out there," he remarked.

After the rally, the group went to the office of Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to deliver 88,000 baby socks, which represented the number of babies aborted at Planned Parenthood since President Donald Trump took office, Life Site News reported.

Ryan was not in his office when the students delivered laundry baskets of 88,000 socks, but a staffer told Hawkins that he would convey the message to the House Speaker.

At the beginning of the year, Ryan promised to make defunding Planned Parenthood a priority in Congress.

In September 2016, Trump sent a letter to pro-life leaders vowing to withhold funds from the organization as long as it performs abortions.

"Defunding Planned Parenthood isn't really controversial within the GOP leadership right now," said Hawkins, adding that the problem was "they can't get their act together on other issues."

Congress is currently working on a spending bill that will fund government operations for the rest of fiscal year 2017.

Planned Parenthood receives around $500 million in annual federal funding, and it will likely receive taxpayer money through next September as the spending bill does not contain any language to defund the abortion provider.