Letter to the Editor: Act on your pro-life convictions

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Letter to the Editor: Act on your pro-life convictions
March for Life, via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Dear Editor,

 

If you attended the 45th annual March for Life in Washington D.C. last Friday or somehow managed to hear about it on the news, you’d think the pro-life movement in America is going strong and gaining steam. But that’s just one side of the story.

The reality is that there are two pro-life movements in the United States today. Those who are philosophically pro-life believe abortion is wrong but passively allow it to continue. They can’t stand the thought of ending a life in the womb. They may even travel to the nation’s capital to march with hundreds of thousands of other pro-life “advocates.”

But if everybody who participated in Washington D.C. were truly adamant about ending abortion, they’d do more than simply march. Of course, thousands who marched in Washington are heavily involved in their own communities year-round to end our horrific abortion policy. On the surface, you’d never know the difference between the two marchers.

If everyone who, in their heart of hearts, believes abortion is wrong acted upon that conviction, pro-life America would be winning. Instead, we’re left with a mandate from a lousy judicial process and confusing polling that seem to conflict with reality.

According to a 2017 Gallup poll, only 29 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal under any circumstance. If that’s the case, then why hasn’t the pro-life movement made more strides?

It’s because convictions aren’t enough; actions matter. And actions aren’t limited to marching once a year. The 71 percent of Americans who believe there should be restrictions on abortion should talk the walk and engage in community action.

They should vote for pro-life candidates. They should volunteer and protest in their own communities. They should pray for troubled mothers and unborn children. Anything is better than pretending to believe something without acting on it.

Pro-life America should be winning. But it’s not. That’s because pro-life America is smaller than the statistics suggest. The pro-life platform should be more than a mere ideology. It should be an urgent commitment to fervent action and prayer for the sake of the most vulnerable and discriminated group of people in the history of the United States of America.