Faith on the Quad Sending Messages

Jan 13, 2009

In light of preparing for the National March for Life in Washington D.C. which will take place this month, I would like to share a story to remind us what our purpose is when approaching such a difficult and desperate decision like abortion.

On a Friday afternoon, several college students visited the Planned Parenthood in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was nearing four o’clock and the count of abortions performed for the day was 25.  The small group of us standing at the entrance must have looked less intimidating than earlier in the day because a black jeep pulled onto the street and parked. A young woman in a navy dress, beads and bright shoes walked up. We greeted her and she began to tell us exactly what she thought of our protest.

She started off by informing us that she thought our standing in protest of abortion outside of the clinic as women drove in was unkind.

Who are you to pass judgment on these girls? You don’t know what they’ve been through. I informed her that the only judgment we were passing is one of disproval on the procedure, the doctors and the misinformation given to the people who had trustingly put their problems in this clinic’s hands. We weren’t judging the women.

You can choose not to abort your children when the time comes, therefore you should let the women driving past today decide for themselves as well. You should not judge them. Again I had to chime in. The only message we have ever spoken is that we can help, there are other options, and that we don’t want this for them or their child. Never had we told them we thought they were terrible people for the decision they were making that morning. We don’t believe that. We aren’t against these women. We’re for women and for life. We’re against abortion, against death.

The woman was not satisfied. She asked us why we weren’t against the death penalty, hunger in third-world countries, or the poor people in our own nation. We informed her that we were against all those things.

Why aren’t you protesting those as well? I replied, saying that on Friday mornings murders are being committed in our own city, in a definite spot, this is what we choose to speak out against at this moment.

But this doesn’t affect you. Directly? It may seem not to, but it does. My classes may be ten people short of what they should be because my "could-have-been classmates" were killed. My generation contains far too many mothers who will suffer the pains of post-abortion trauma. My country and its culture are falling down a slope of depreciation for life and it gains speed every day. Yes, it does affect me - directly.

I don’t understand why you waste your time standing here when you won’t make a difference. This was the challenge. She was brutally reminding us that we haven’t changed many minds. We were still the minority in a country bursting with pro-choice campaigns and affiliations. But, we must have faith that our prayers, sacrifices and efforts do make a difference. Christ is working through our short conversations and hopeful prayers. And, those few lives that are saved each month, due to humble witnesses standing outside these clinics, are more incredible differences than we can ever know.

I don’t know that we changed her mind, but I think she gained a better understanding as to why so many people, the elderly, middle-aged, teenagers, and children, spend their time trying to convince despairing fathers and mothers to continue their child’s life.

We don’t come to scoff; we come to care, to help. We come to have a hand in revealing to our culture the lies it is being fed. We come to be a message of truth. Most Fridays we’re barely heard and almost always misunderstood, but at least we know we were there and we were that message. Let us remember to use our talents and time to send these compassionate messages of truth to our culture. It is in our silence that others are allowed to speak even louder.