Evelyn Dietz, Rollins College – Florida, $400
By Evelyn Dietz
As a general rule, religious “Nones” have the potential to protect pressing rights regarding bodily autonomy in the United States, whether it relates to reproductive rights, gender affirming care or restricted access to information and books.
According to the Pew Research Center, 86 percent of religiously unaffiliated people hold the belief that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, as opposed to just 25 percent of white evangelical Protestants. With atheists and agnostics going out to vote at similar or higher rates than those who are religiously affiliated, there is the potential to counteract or reverse the dangerous six-week or total abortion bans that have been plaguing the nation.