Pro-Life's Next Movement
Political change is giving the abortion lobby an upper hand. What's the best action for pro-life Christians to take next? Melinda Delahoyde, president of Care Net, Clenard H. Childress Jr., founder of BlackGenocide.org., and Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, suggest the next steps for the pro-life movement.
Volunteer at a Center
The pro-life movement's next move is to foster an explosion of people who do support women facing unplanned pregnancies.
Melinda Delahoyde, president of Care Net
Can you imagine what our nation might look like if every pro-life individual applied the full weight of his or her passion to reaching out with support and care to women facing crisis pregnancies?
Not only would this radically reduce the number of abortions, it would also powerfully communicate the God-given value of human life. While we have limited opportunities to promote a "culture of life" on legal and political fronts, there is no limit to what you and I can do to inspire life, one person at a time.
Every day, from the moment we get out of bed, we have opportunities to speak words of life, hope, and compassion in order to encourage someone to take a positive, life-giving step. On a yearly basis, 30,000 individuals do this by quietly volunteering in their communities in one of our nation's 2,000-plus pregnancy resource centers. Through love, encouragement, and practical help, women (and men) are inspired against all odds to take the difficult step of choosing to carry a pregnancy to term.
As a result of volunteers' efforts, the hearts and lives of hundreds of thousands of women and children are saved, touched, and healed. The ripple effect is eternal.
What makes volunteering at a pregnancy center so profound and rewarding is developing a loving relationship with a woman in need. One young woman named Rachael visited a pregnancy center when she was five months pregnant, addicted to heroin, and wondering whether partial-birth abortion might still be an option.
Not only did the pregnancy center provide the practical help of getting her connected to a nonprofit physician who provided care during her at-risk pregnancy (which resulted in the birth of a healthy girl), her peer counselor also shared the love and story of Jesus Christ with her. Rachael said of her volunteer counselor, "I think that was the first time in a really long time that I felt like someone actually cared about me."
You may think, I want to help, but I don't know that I am able. But everyone can do something. There is no talent or skill a pregnancy center cannot utilize and translate into the hands and feet of Jesus reaching out to women like Rachael. In volunteering, you will join a legacy of Christians who for centuries have provided compassionate outreach to pregnant women in crisis.
It's easy to feel powerless to effect change in the political arena. Yet each of us has the power to inspire life every day by simply offering grace and support to women facing unplanned pregnancies—whether at a pregnancy center or maybe even in your own family. What the pro-life movement must do next is foster an explosion of people who do just this.
To find a pregnancy center, visit www.InspireLifeNow.org, which provides specific information about how to get involved.
Speak Out Publicly
The pro-life movement needs people who are willing to speak out in the public square.
Clenard H. Childress Jr., founder of BlackGenocide.org.
For the pro-life movement, last November looked like the beginning of a walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The American people elected the most pro-abortion candidate in our nation's history. Moving at warp speed, the Obama administration began to implement its agenda. It bears repeating: The most dangerous place for an African American to be is in the womb of his or her African American mother.
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Charlie in UK
After seven days there appears to be no comment. Why do we keep on arguing about abortion, rather than seek its prevention in the power of our Saviour? In the meantime thousands of unborn babies are being killed. On judgement day we will have to give an answer for what we did not do, rather than how good our arguments were.
Lou
The trolley test would is very much like the logic employed by those who justified the slavery of blacks. If one was on a runaway trolly and there were two tracks this speeding car could take. On one track was a white man who would be killed instantly and on the other was a black man would also be killed. Some would see both outcomes as being morally equivalent. The slavery apologist, like the abortion apologist, found that to be absurd. The victims change, but the justifications of the morally depraved people who attack them are much the same.
Marann
Amber P., good heavens, you are bitter & you apparently never heard of pregnancy crisis centers that help moms with counseling, clothes, housing, education & all the support they need if they ask & are willing to work the program. Some offer a place to live, adoption services or opportunities for a woman to move on with or without her baby. The losers are the ones who irresponsibly hang onto trashy boyfriends and trashy lifestyles & think it's the norm. Blame the mom, not the baby for what happens. I know a girl, 19, who is having her 2nd baby with a 2nd loser. She wanted abortions but neither boyfriend could pay & she refused adoption. Kept the first baby, lost her to foster care, and doesn't want #2 but won't consider adoption. She said, "I'd rather the baby be dead than adopted. I could never give up my baby once I had it." Go figure.