Why I am Pro-Life: Reason #3

This is part 3 of a series of four parts on why I am Pro-Life. I have not always been pro-life and I hope my witness can be of interest to others who are on the fence, do not have a strong opinion, or feel that there are some cases in which abortion should be allowed. I hope this series can be of help for anyone questioning the pro-choice agenda. If you have not yet read the previous parts of this series you may want to refer to part one and part two.

In part two of this series I spoke about the passion of pro-lifers and how that caught my attention as a lackadaisical pro-choicer. I also alluded to the actions these people took in an effort to combat the injustices they saw in our society. This goes hand-in-hand with this next post.

Reason #3 why I am pro-life: I saw passion put into action, not just talk.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Lots of people talk about lots of things lots of the time. And then they keep talking and after a while you stop listening. If you are trying to convince someone of your side of an argument, idea, or topic, talking about it incessantly to him or her will not get the desired results. People stop listening.

But when we act out our belief system in a way that makes a statement ... wow. That can speak volumes!

I had listened and I had witnessed the passion. If that had been it I might still be on the fence. But that wasn't it. I was suddenly more aware of the actions of people who believed in this cause:

• I saw the pro-life booth set up along side booths selling food, selling crafts, promoting politicians, etc.  on Main Street during a downtown event.
• I became aware of the people who prayed outside the abortion clinic in my town and was amazed that people did that.
• I found out that there were pregnancy helps centers who were eager for donations and people I knew were volunteering with them, collection donations, donating needed items and money, and so much more.
• I learned about Priests for Life and other organizations which I had never known existed before.
• I also met lots of families who had adopted or wanted to adopt; some in real life, some through their stories shared in blog posts, articles, and other media. 
• And I learned about the March for Life in DC and the many other marches and events held around the country all near the anniversary of Roe v Wade. 

Many of these actions were contrary to what I had been led to believe from the pro-choice movement. The pro-choice movement likes to throw it in the face of the pro-life movement that they only want to save the baby but have no interest in helping the mother. And yet there are pregnancy help centers all over the place. Pro-choicers like to point fingers and say things like, "Are you going to take this baby?" as if pro-lifers have no interest in the child. And yet I knew tons of people who had adopted babies, who wanted to adopt, or were willing to adopt. I saw people actually doing something. This was very much unlike anything I expected to find.

Let's also look at the March for Life. Once I learned about this amazing event and saw the numbers of people nation-wide who participated I was stunned. And that is probably an understatement. Now, I will admit that I am not an avid news reader, but I like to think that I pay attention enough to get the big stories and know what is going on in the world. Back when I was moving away from the pro-choice mentality and into the pro-life mentality I was single and living alone and would often watch the news in the morning before work. But I had never heard of this March for Life before. Not once.

So when I finally did hear about it I was shocked to see how big it was. We're not talking about a small march of about a 1000 people from the region around DC, we're talking hundreds of thousands from across the whole country! Amazing!! And the best quote I've ever seen about the demographics of the March for Life came from NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan who was in DC for the 37th Annual March for Life (2010) and commented on what she saw afterwards:

"I just thought, my gosh, they are so young," Keenan recalled. "There are so many of them and they are so young." [source: sba-list.org]

The March for Life estimated it had about 400,000 activists participate in the March for Life that year.

For me, witnessing that the pro-life movement was not just talk but was full of people who were activists on many levels had a huge impact on me. I recognized a real love for the human person (the unborn babies, the mothers, the fathers) that I had not witnessed in other circles. The pro-choice movement put all its care into the woman (they wouldn't call her a mother) and no one else. Many of them did care, but didn't look at the big pictures. That was me, too. Hearts are in the right place, but are clouded over by terminology that prevents one from seeing the full picture.

I would say at this point in my life I was more willing to take on the label of Pro-life than I had ever been before. The clouds were lifting, the scales were falling from my eyes, and I began to see the baby as a person. I still had questions and was still unclear on the difficult circumstances, but I was willing to take the leap of faith and declare that I stood with the pro-life movement.

I think one more post is in order to kind of tie this series up. So stay tuned for more. (Hopefully it won't take me as long to get it out as this one did.)

Why I am Pro-Life: Reason #2

This is part 2 of a series of as yet to be determined parts on why I am Pro-Life. I have not always been pro-life and I hope my witness can be of interest to others who are on the fence, do not have a strong opinion, or feel that there are some cases in which abortion should be allowed. I hope this series can be of help for anyone questioning the pro-choice agenda. You can read part 1 here.

March for Life 2012, Washington Post

In my last post of this series I said that my former pro-choice position was based on emotional arguments only. It was finally taking the time to actually listen to the pro-life side that started having an effect on how I viewed the issue intellectually. But that was only the very first step. To say that one side is too emotional and the other too intellectual creates a simplicity that does not exist. What I want to talk about here is the emotional aspect of the pro-life side.

Reason #2 why I am pro-life: I witnessed a passion for the issue that I had never seen before.

Demonstrations and rallies and letter campaigns and so much more were things of the past to me. They happened during a time period before I was born. I didn't know anyone who did these kinds of things. There didn't seem to be a reason for doing these things because the rights that had been fought for were now laws on the books. What was left?

I knew plenty of people who were pro-choice, who believed in a woman's right to choose, but none of them had to do anything about it. For my generation, those laws have always been there. I guess there really was no reason to have a passion for it.

But as I started meeting more pro-life people, talking to them, listening to them, asking questions of them, and witnessing their actions, I saw a passion that was infectious. I saw people who went to demonstrations and rallies and wrote letters to the editor. I saw people who spoke up in what they believed in and challenged others who (like me) didn't have a strong conviction. I saw people who could speak intelligently on the issue, make sense, and show a compassion for women that I had not witnessed among the pro-choice crowd.

That kind of passion speaks volumes. And it did for me.

Over 200 THOUSAND people attending a pro-life rally in Washington, D.C. every January on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade? How come I had never heard of that before? I was stunned!

Plus there was so much more. The pro-choice side focused on one thing: abortion. That wasn't true on the pro-life side. This side of the coin focuses on so much more and it all goes hand in hand: euthanasia, the death penalty, and much more. All those issues along with fighting for the rights of children to be born were like different pieces of a puzzle that all fit together to make a whole. It gave more meaning and depth to the pro-life movement.

What impressed me was that no one had to sit me down and try to convince me of their side. Just listening and witnessing the passion for this issue was all I needed to get my wheels spinning and start reconsidering my convictions. Actions really do speak louder than words. And then you find out more:

Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe, converted to Catholicism and now fights for the repeal of the law for which she is named.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL, became pro-life and spent the rest of his life fighting for the rights of the unborn.

These are just two examples of many, many more. I started wondering what convinced these people, people who had a profound impact on current law, to completely change their tunes and fight on with the pro-life movement.

And they had a passion for it. That was obvious. You have to have a passion for it to give up friends and family to fight for something you believe in. Plus, in all my reading of liberal, pro-women magazines and other literature I had never once ran across anyone who converted to the pro-choice side after being well-known, passionate pro-lifers. Why did it always seem to be one way and not the other?

At this point in my journey I was definitely on the road to conversion myself. I could no longer call myself pro-choice, but I was still hesitant to call myself pro-life. I appreciated the passion I saw for the rights of the unborn, but I wasn't ready to attend a rally myself yet. I needed more convincing.

Stay tuned for more in part three of my story.

Why I Am Pro-Life: Reason #1

This is part 1 of a series of as yet to be determined parts on why I am Pro-Life. I have not always been pro-life and I hope my witness can be of interest to others who are on the fence, do not have a strong opinion, or feel that there are some cases in which abortion should be allowed. I hope this series can be of help for anyone questioning the pro-choice agenda.

As I contemplated how exactly to begin this series of posts, I couldn't decide how intentionally forceful I should make the very first post. In the end I decided that going for a big punch wasn't important. What was important was that I start and that I share from the heart. So I encourage you to read this post and to stick around for the others, especially if this one does not speak to you. There will be more.

Why am I Pro-Life? It's a good question because I have not always been a champion for the rights of the unborn. It saddens me to think of who I once was. But at the same time I have had several years of asking questions, studying, and listening to others, years I wouldn't trade for anything. I feel like now my position is much more a part of me than if this was something i had just always accepted without question.

And for those who might be like me ... which is stubborn, by the way ... I encourage you to simply listen.

Reason #1 why I am pro-life: I listened.

It's such a simple thing. And yet we (society in general) really don't know how to listen anymore. We hear lots of things ... but do we really listen?

I held an opinion because it made the most sense to me from an emotional perspective. I honestly didn't put a lot of thought into it. I just knew though that abortion had to be a choice that could not be taken away. The problem was that I had no real reason for believing that other than that it just made sense. Had I been challenged on an intellectual level, I don't know that I would have been able to make a solid case for legal abortion.

Then one day I began volunteering to play with a music group at my church. I was just embarking on my journey back to the Church and thought this would be a good way to do something in the church, meet other people, and learn some about the faith. The problem was that I still wasn't listening. Rehearsals mostly consisted of talk about the music and how the music fit into the liturgy (I learned a lot about the beauty of the Mass from that experience) but every now and again the talk would veer off into something else. You have to understand, this was a small group, about 6-8 of us at any given time. Off topic discussions happen frequently in small groups.

There was one person in the group, who also happened to be a doctor, who was very pro-life. If he got on the topic he could talk your ear off. For a long while I tended to zone out and not listen. I think I knew, probably subconsciously, that if I had really listened to him, he could have easily shattered my perspective.

Thankfully, God doesn't give up. Eventually, I did start to take notice. Certain points started making sense. I found myself listening just a very tiny bit more. I'd go home and search for sources to justify my own position and come up with either nothing substantial or websites to groups that didn't seem to have Church approval (and they didn't, I later discovered).

Listening to this person pushed me to start thinking about this issue on a more intellectual level. The emotional reasons for supporting abortion easily crumble when you have to start putting facts to it. But that is not to say that there is not an emotional side to the pro-life position.

On the contrary, I was surprised that there was much, much more to the pro-life position than I had originally thought. But I will save that for the next post: Reason #2.