Just Think About It...

September 22nd, 2012

               For the first time ever, I felt that it was only me and my team outside of a clinic.

I was chalking and praying while about ten to fifteen of pro-life club prayed, sang, and sidewalk counseled.  I was doing my thing when an angry “deathscort” came up to me, “You can’t chalk here,” she snapped.  I politely asked her if the sidewalk I was on was a public sidewalk, “Well yes, but don’t block the sidewalk,” she hissed.

                   “Yes ma’am,” I replied and continued chalking.  They themselves had chalked a line where the sidewalk counselors were not allowed to “trespass”, so we thought that I was fine and dandy.  Little did I know that trouble was brewing on the inside of this wretched clinic.

           A woman came up to me, eyes blazing with anger as I chalked, “Your baby’s heart starts beating at only twenty-one days.”

                   “You can’t chalk here!  You are defacing the sidewalk.”

          “Well it’s a public sidewalk right?”

                   “Yes, but it is owned by the landlord here.”

          “Well if it’s public, then I am going to continue to chalk here.”

                   “Then I’m calling the landlord and the police.”

          “Alright,” I answered and continued chalking.  “But I’m going to call them,”  I did not look up, but I told her that it was fine if she wanted to call them.  She turned around and went back inside the clinic with a huff.

          I moved to a different part of the sidewalk after I asked Kristina what I should chalk.  She told me that I should chalk “It’s not too late!  Call 1-800-712-HELP,” right before all of my other chalk started.  I just chalked, “It’s not…” before a policewoman yelled at me, “Ma’am! Ma’am!”  I stood up to talk to her,  “You can’t chalk here.”

                 “Well I don’t understand.  This is a public sidewalk right?”

          “It is a public sidewalk, but it is owned by the landlord.”

                 “The landlord owns this entire sidewalk?”

          “Yes.”

                 “For this entire block?”

          “Yes.”

                 “But why do they get to chalk their outline for their property?  It doesn’t make sense that i can’t chalk here.”  I was about to chalk when a police car pulled up.  I thought that these policemen would actually know the law, but boy was I wrong!  Through the car window, i heard the police talking to Kristina, “If she continues, you can be cited or arrested.”  Then the police woman on her bike piped up, “For disorderly conduct, and defacing someone’s property,” the cop in the car nodded in agreement. 

As I was listening, a fellow pro-lifer walked up to me, “You know, this…this isn’t worth it.  You’re only going to get arrested, it’s not worth it.”  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  Chalking sidewalks is so helpful and it helps to get messages and help numbers to the women who are walking into the clinic.  I’m going to be honest, I have never had a pro-lifer say that to me.  In fact, I was so shocked, that I didn’t even reply to him.  Then another pro-lifer came up to me, “I think it’s best if you just comply with them.  It’s just chalk, it’s not worth a citation or an arrest.”  These kinds of comments happened at least two other times!  

             Then, next thing I know, the clinic brought out buckets, sponges, and other cleaning materials.  Oh they are probably going to scrub the sidewalk themselves.  I was wrong.  Some of the other pro-lifers caved in and offered to scrub the sidewalk!  There was some serious spiritual warfare going on here.  When these pro-lifers were telling me that it was a lost cause to chalk on the sidewalk, the devil was probably working there.  In fact, I felt it!  What was running through my head was the verse from Matthew 16:22-23 “And Peter, taking him aside, began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Lord, may it be far from you; this shall not happen to you.’  And turning away, Jesus said to Peter: “Get behind me Satan; you are an obstacle to me.  For you are not behaving according to what is of God, but according to what is of men.”

              I said that in my head at least every time someone tried to crush my hope and courage.  I went to our van because I could not take it anymore, and as I was about to cross the street, I began to think on what those pro-lifers said and realized how alone I felt on that sidewalk.  The only support that I felt was from my own team!  Then I felt crushed.  I admit it, I did cry.  Not because I was sad, but because some of my own brothers and sisters in Christ would not take a stand on my behalf.  Instead, they decided to comply and break my walls down.

              I was frustrated and sad for these particular pro-lifers and anyone else who is like that.  I pray daily, even hourly for sidewalk counselors and other pro-life leaders and volunteers.

              If they could comply with a ridiculous statement from “law enforcement,” what if they comply with other things?  What if they comply with President Obama’s HHS Mandate?  Weill we comply and throw our faith into the fire?  My brothers and sisters in Christ, will you comply?  Will you throw away your faith and morals to protect yourself from jail?  My friends, complying and going against your faith and morals may not put you in jail here, but complying may put you at risk to ending up in the eternal jail downstairs.

Think about it.

"I do have a story about this place..."

This week was probably one of the best weeks ever!  We spent the entire week in Ohio, which is now one of my favorite places of all time, and we are stayed with Bryan Kemper of Stand True Ministries.  During our stay, we went to an abortuary to sidewalk counsel, and my team held signs of fetal development and graphic images of abortions, while I chalked and Kristina counseled.  I chalked things like “For REAL help, call 1-800-712-HELP” and “Pretend I’m a tree: save me”.  After chalking pretty much the entire sidewalk, I stopped because I was skinning my fingers as the chalk wore to a nub. I had started walking back when a car stopped next to me.

“What’s all this about?” A woman asked me from her car.  I bent over and explained to her that this was an abortion clinic and that we were sidewalk counseling.  I also told her that we were there to show women the truth about abortion and to show them there are a lot better decisions than abortion, and a dead baby.

 “Oh that’s awesome!” she said, surprising me. “I have a daughter that wants to come out here sometime and do this sort of thing, but she is a little young.  When she is sixteen or seventeen, then I’ll come with her.”

I was so excited that this mom was going to take her kids out to sidewalk counsel, I wanted to hug her. But she kept going, and her face changed.

“I do have a story about this place, and MY experience.”  I realized that this conversation might go on for a while, so I knelt on the grass to listen. She told me she had come to that same clinic in 2006 -- to have an abortion. And it was horrible.

“They didn’t care about anything,” said said, lip trembling, “After the abortion, I started hemorrhaging, and they waited forever to even bring the machine back upstairs to do another you know...whatever it’s called that they do.  And a nurse...I was so scared, and a nurse was like, ‘Don’t you have other children?”and she laughed, and told me, ‘You’re going to make your kids’ lives a living hell.’ Can you believe? And then I had to go to the hospital immediately afterwards and spend a day there.”  

I told her that I was so sorry about what happened to her and her baby and she nodded, “They were awful.  When the abortion was done, they showed me my baby. They showed me the jars with him in them --  MY baby!  I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”  

We were silent together. I realized in a different way how serious an evil abortion is -- how nothing turns back that choice, how death can’t be undone.

Then she took a deep breath, and the moment passed. She told me she had just come from the Crisis Pregnancy center across the street -- she had had an ultrasound, and was 7 weeks pregnant! She beamed a huge smile, glowing with excitement.

When she finally shook my hand to go, and introduced herself, she dropped in passing that she had never had a chance to talk to anyone about her abortion before -- and was grateful she could tell me. I even got the chance to tell her the dangers of artificial contraception, and how IUD’s, and other chemical birth control actually CAUSE abortions by thinning the lining of the uterus and preventing the baby from implanting. But with an IUD, a baby can even live for a few months, and be killed by it then.  

Before she left, she thanked me again. She had come willing to heal, and God put me there with the info she needed! That’s why the Campus Life Tour is so important, and it’s why I’m out here still, almost every day.

Please pray for her, her family, and her preborn child!

Planned Parenthood Volunteer Does a 180!

Our Survivors Campus Life Team has been traveling for about three days now, and we just took our first stop to reach out to college students in Oklahoma.  Today started out as a normal kind of day.  I set up a pro-life info table while the rest of my team set up signs and began to distribute literature.  Our experience at this college was probably the best this semester!  We handed out over two-thousand pieces of literature to the students and had amazing conversations.

One young woman came up to my table and seemed interested.  

“Hi, how are you?” I asked her.

“I’m doing well,” she answered in a sweet southern accent.  She was looking at the baby models on the table and then told me that she taught high school students how to have “safe sex”.  I asked her what she thought of birth control and the use of condoms.  She thought they were fine and dandy.  I pointed out that condoms are never one-hundred percent effective because they can break, and that even the tiniest hole in a condom could result in pregnancy.  

“Well yeah, I agree, but there is always birth control, and that doesn’t do anything wrong, right?” she asked.

Then I explained to her that even birth control wasn’t one hundred percent effective either.  I also told her that some forms of contraception can cause abortion since the pills thin the lining of the uterus.  

She looked at me with disbelief, “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am totally serious, and Planned Parenthood is one of the biggest abortion providers in the whole United States.”  She looked down and began to finger the literature I had placed on the table, “I am a volunteer for Planned Parenthood.”  

“Oh, really?”  That definitely took me by surprise.

“Yeah, but I am going to leave them now that I know what they really do.”  I was wondering if my words had actually changed her mind.  

“I am definitely pro-life now, thank you so much for telling me these things.”  

I mentioned to her that for the upcoming election she could vote for the most pro-life politician possible.  

“Well, what is Obama’s view on abortion?” she asked.

I sighed to myself, “He’s not a pro-life politician, in fact, he is probably the most pro-abortion president that this country has ever seen!”  

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, “Are you serious?”

“Yeah I am!  He voted against a bill when he was a senator that would protect babies if they survived an abortion.  He said, and I quote, ‘The bill is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.’  Would you vote for someone who votes against that two times?”  

She thought about it for at least a second. “Hell no!  I am registered as an independant so I am going to vote for whoever I want, and that person will be Mitt Romney.  Sure I may not agree with some of the things that he says, but if he is pro-life and not voting against laws that can save a baby’s life, I will vote for him!”

She took every piece of literature that I had on my table, “I am going to read this, and I am going to pass on this valuable information to all of my friends that volunteer with Planned Parenthood!”  

We shook hands and she went on to spread the truth about abortion to her friends.  Out of all of the semesters I have been with Survivors, I think this was the most successful discussion I have ever encountered!  It’s not everyday that you can say that a Planned Parenthood volunteer just switched sides seconds after learning what Planned Parenthood actually does with our money.

I'M BAAAAACK!

Well, after a long time deciding whether or not I was coming on tour, I have returned!  New year, new team, and new adventures!  This week was training week.  I know it may sound pretty boring, but this training week included going to three high schools and one college two days in a row!  The first high school that we went to on Tuesday was Grand Terrace high school.  Adam (a new team member) and I were standing outside of the high school waiting for the bell to ring.  We were talking and waiting, then we saw an administrator of the high school come outside on his little golf cart.  Then a school policeman showed up on his bicycle and started talking to the administrator.  Oh boy I thought.  First day out on the job and we already have admin and police out and ready.  The bell rang and I told Adam to face his signs to the street and the cars that were coming out of the parking lot of the school.  I was handing out literature, and I found that everyone was really supportive and open to taking the literature that I was handing to them whether or not they were in a car.  We were coming near the end of the after school rush and then a man pulled up in a flashy car and a suit.  He got out of his car carrying a large black folder and came up to me.  He pushed back his jacket and flashed his badge at me trying to intimidate me, “I just came to give you the penal codes for this area.  You are not blocking anyone from leaving?” I replied with a “No sir,” trying to be as polite as I possibly could.  “Alright well here are the penal codes that I was told you were breaking, but everything seems to be fine.”  He handed me the paper and then walked back to his car.  I decided to look at the paper to see what the school was trying to accuse us of and one penal code that was highlighted on the list was “Interfering with school activities.”  I am pretty sure we were not there while school was in session, and we were definitely not on the football field at that time, so it was pretty much impossible for us to even break that law.  Anyways, it was an excellent first day of activism!

The next day, we woke up early, rushed to the office, packed up and headed off to Riverside Community College.  When we arrived at ten o’clock in the morning, it was already well above ninety degrees.  That day was probably one of the hottest days on campus with the temperature reaching up to one-hundred and ten degrees.  We did not want to pass out from the heat, so we stayed in the shade and drank as much water during the time on campus.  The last time that I went to RCC, we had protesters come out at the last minute to yell and scream at us while we were doing our peaceful outreach.  This time, it was very different.  People came up and told us we were doing a fantastic job.  Some other students gave us thumbs up, received our literature, and we had no protesters!  I was waiting and waiting for protesters to show up, but they never came.  That day I also talked to a student who saw the graphic sign of a baby aborted at around ten weeks.  I asked him what he thought of the sign, but he just looked at the sign flabbergasted.  Then he looked up at me, “I was on the fence, a fifty-fifty kind of guy, but when I saw this sign,” he paused for a minute taking everything in, “Now I’m one hundred percent pro-life, and I am going to tell all of my friends about this.”  He motioned to the literature and walked away with a smile on his face.

We went to RCC a second day to talk to as many students as we could and to to saturate the campus with literature.  I was in charge of holding the signs that were as tall as I was while we were there, but even though they were pretty tall for me, I could still have some conversations with students passing by.  One girl came up to Lizzy and began arguing that we should not have the right to tell a woman what to do with her body.  Lizzy told her that it was not a woman’s body, but an individual human being’s body in the womb.  The girl said that she did not think that the child was a baby yet, so she did not consider abortion murder.  When I showed her the picture of the baby that was aborted in the third trimester, she said that she thought it was bad to abort a baby at that age, but it was fine when a woman decided to get an abortion in the first trimester because the baby was not developed.  Then I asked Kyle to turn his sign around that he was holding and showed her a picture of a first trimester abortion.  “Can you honestly look at that picture and say that is okay?”  She glanced over for a split second and turned back to me, “Well it’s not developed yet, and it doesn’t have a personality.”

A young woman could not contain herself any longer, “Does a personality define if you are a person or not?  That doesn’t make any sense!  If you would actually read their signs, you can see that a baby has a heart beat, brainwaves, internal organs, EVERYTHING!”  Then the two of them started debating among themselves.  “Well what if that baby is conceived through rape?”

“So she is a baby?  You have to stick to one side or the other, is she a baby or not?”

“Well it’s a fetus.”  Then I pointed out that fetus meant “little one” in Latin and that she was a little “someone”.  The baby could not be anything else, and she just waved it off like I said nothing important.  “But what if a fetus was conceived from rape?”  I came in again, “Well does that change the humanity of a person?  I know someone who was conceived out of rape, do you think that she shouldn’t have a right to life?”  The discussion continued until she excused herself from the group to sign up for a math class.

Well that’s only week one!  I wonder what will happen in the next few months.

It's Official

I never thought that I would say this, but I am going on the Campus Life Tour for a THIRD SEMESTER!  

Yes I am crazy.  Crazy to save babies lives!  I think that this is a rare opportunity for me and I have been praying about this for months now, but I decided that I was going to do Campus Life Tours during the 15th annual Survivors Pro-Life Training Camp!

During camp, I made a whole bunch of new friends.  Friends that I hope to see next year at the Survivors Alumni party, because ABORTION WILL BE NO MORE BY NEXT YEAR!  The fight will still be on, but with a new generation of pro-lifers coming into the picture, the fight may be over sooner than we thought.  

Ok, not to be all self centered or anything, I will talk about how I made my decision to stay on CLT.

It was one of those days after a long day of activism that I just needed to take a break and talk to God.  I found out that a group of Catholics were going to go to a local Catholic Church and go to Adoration since it was a Perpetual Adoration Chapel (we really need some in the East Bay).  So I decided to go, my head thumping with thoughts, with my Bible and rosary in hand to meditate on what had happened that day, and to ask the Lord to give me strength.  I walked into the chapel and immediately bowed down before the Lord in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.  I made the sign of the cross over myself and proceeded to sit down in a chair in the back.  I knelt on the comfortable pads and began to pray.  I prayed for my safety and the safety of my family and friends, then a little voice in my head kept saying, "Do it."  Do it? What is that supposed to mean?  I prayed to God asking him what he wanted me to do.  Then I felt my heart skip a beat.  I think I know what you want me to do. I whispered under my breath.  I sat down and flipped to Proverbs 24:11 "Rescue those who are being dragged to the slaughter, and from those tottering to execution withdraw not."

Lord, do you really want me to do this again?  Was I really that helpful?  Was it worth it?

There was another voice in my head that kept saying, "Do it," over and over again.  

The next day, we went to Laguna Beach to do some outreach, (I'm a poet and I didn't know it) and I was standing next to a little pathway to the beach.  I looked to see everyone having awesome conversations, lining the street with signs on the development of a baby through all nine months, it was an awesome sight that you HAD to see.  Then I heard a buzzing, no it wasn't my phone because I had the ringer on.  I looked down at my hand to see a few bees buzzing around my hand and landing on me!  I froze and just watched the bees as then sniffed (do bees sniff?) around on my hand.  I don't want to be here, I want to go back to the van, I want to get away from these bees!  Those were the thoughts that were running through my head.  Now that I look back on that moment, I feel like I was such a coward.  When those bees landed on me, it almost seemed like it was all a dream, but then reality snapped back into place and I asked a fellow camper to shoo the bees away.  That night I took a van full of kids to Adoration, but this time I told my friend what had happened.  Then as I was telling her what had happened, I realized that every time I did pro-life work since last year at Venice Beach when I had my bee episode, there have always been bees.  There were no bees when I did everyday things, just when I did pro-life work!  My friend told me that it was probably spiritual warfare going on.  I'm not going to lie, but when she said this, I was honestly terrified.  Why is the evil one targeting me?  Am I actually doing something that important?  Answer number one: I am protecting the little ones from his clutches.  When a pregnant woman walks into an abortion clinic to kill her child, she is walking into a living Hell.  The abortionist knows what he is doing.  He knows he is killing a human being.  He knows he is killing God's own creation!  The evil one is obviously not happy that I am doing pro-life work, but now I know that I have to do this more than ever!  Answer number two:  I am saving lives, of course it is important!

I sat there in the driver's seat thinking about all that happened, and I did begin to cry.  I hate crying in front of people, but at this moment, all of my feelings poured out at once.  Love, hatred, happiness, sadness, etc.  I wiped my tears, but they kept coming.

When I finally calmed down, I walked into the chapel and knelt on the ground.  I didn't need the comfort of the chairs or the kneelers, I knelt on the marble ground even though there were a few comfortable kneelers.  I pulled my rosary out from my bag, and I began to pray the rosary.  That day, I prayed the Luminious mysteries, and something stirred in my heart, I looked at the Blessed Sacrament and then everything around it went black.  I could not see anything but the Sacrament!  Then I pulled out my Bible and let it fall to a random page, and this is where it opened to, "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."  

God is good, ALL THE TIME!

And that is pretty much how I decided that I was going to go on Campus Life Tours!  If God is there to protect me, what have I to fear?  Bees?  God is much bigger than a measly bee!

For Life and for the Little Ones,

Sarah

A Day at the Fair

On April 22nd, it was the Earth Fair!  I had never been to an earth fair, and I had never been to one with the Survivors.  I was in charge of setting up the “Stump a Survivor” area because I was the one who figured out how to set up the banner nicely.  After I finished, I placed a black block and a stool for the Survivor to sit on.  Then I ran over to the children’s booth.  I forgot to mention that we had a children’s booth as well as an adult booth.  So I went to the children’s booth to make sure that no one needed my help.

I arrived at the children’s booth to find fetal development signs set up, a sign that read “A Person’s a Person no matter how small!”, and multiple signs that said “We are here!”.  It was such a fun colorful booth!  There were stations to color pictures, a station to make bracelets, and couple info booths that had amazing models showing the different stages in the baby’s life in the womb.  I decided that I was going to help with the info table because there were plenty of people working at the other two stations.  While I was standing at my station, a pregnant woman and her husband came up to the table to look at the information and the models.  “Hi how are you?” I said to them.  “We are doing fantastic!” They said together.  The woman looked at the little baby models and rubbed her pregnant belly.  “How far along are you?” I finally asked.  She beamed with excitement, “About six months now!”

I picked up the twenty-six week old baby model and held it up to her, “Then this is about the actual size and weight of your baby right now.”  She took the model in her hands and held it next to her belly to do a size comparison.  Then I showed her the “Watch Me Grow” pamphlet that showed the baby’s development through all nine months of pregnancy.  I showed her month six and told her that by this time, her baby can hear her talking.  She rubbed her belly and leaned over as far as she could and said, “Hello my sweet, little, baby of mine!  This is your mama speaking!”  I smiled as her husband leaned down to do the same, “Hello baby!  This is daddy!  I can’t wait to hold you.”  It was so awesome!  I love seeing parents with their first kid on the way.  They are always so excited and interested to see what their baby can do through all nine months of pregnancy.  Even if that baby is not their first, they are still as excited as they were when they had their first kid!  I loved working at that booth.  I loved listening to women telling me what they planned to name their baby if they had a boy or a girl.  It was an awesome experience for me.  Usually at campuses, there would be women who were post-abortive, or people who knew women who have had abortions, but at this booth, there was happiness!  Pure happiness!

I am not going to lie, the children’s booth was actually a little overwhelming for me.  Yes it was happy and everyone was happy there, but that was the problem for me!  Believe it or not, the happiness was really overwhelming that I actually cried when that couple was talking to their little daughter or son in the womb.  “Hey this is daddy” or “Hello my sweet little baby of mine!” A tear did run down my cheek.  Why doesn’t anyone stand up and take a stand against abortion?  It’s obvious that it is a little person in the womb, she can’t be anything else!  

So since the children’s booth was so overwhelming for me, I moved back to the adult booth to work a little bit over there.  When I got there, there was anger, debates were going at either end of the road we were on, there were graphic signs of aborted children, and people with tablecloths trying to block our signs!  There was a 100% contrast from the other booth.  People that I had seen happy at the children’s booth had turned into angry protesters who did not agree with our message!  I conversed with a few of the angry people walking by saying things like “shame on you” or “you’re disgusting” to our faces.  I remember one person that came up to me.  She looked like she was very sweet, when she got up to me, she was sweet, but she did not agree with what I was doing.  “You should spread the message of love to the women, not these pictures of hatred.”

“These are pictures of the truth,” I said to her.

“You have to be like Jesus and spread love.  Jesus would have never displayed a graphic picture like this.”  I stretched my arms as wide as they could go, “He did do a graphic picture when he was crucified.”

“Well...um...well he knew that he was going to die like that.”

“So what’s the difference of me standing here with this sign and Jesus’ crucifiction?”

“His message was a message of love.”  I had started becoming irritated, but I calmly said to her, “I love the women.  I love the babies.  I even love the men involved in the pregnancy.  I love them all so much that I will do anything to protect them from going through this horrible thing.  I do not want a woman to go through the regret of killing her own child.  I do not want the child to be ripped apart in his or her mother’s womb which is supposed to be a safe haven for that child.  I do not want that man to be a father of a dead child.  That is why I am holding this sign.”  Unfortunately, she still did not understand and kept saying that I should spread the message of love like Jesus did.  “Ma’am, just like Jesus did, I am displaying a graphic image to save people!  I am here to protect everyone here.  I love everyone here!”

“Maybe you should just stay out of the decision of a woman between her and her doctor.”

“Now that I know that you are a christian, in Proverbs, it says to ‘Rescue those who are being dragged to the slaughter; and from those tottering to execution, withdraw not.’ I am here to rescue those little babies that are being dragged into abortion clinics against their will.”  

“But you shouldn’t use such a graphic picture,” she said folding her arms across her chest.

I pointed to the sign, “I can describe this as much as I want.  I can tell you how horrible and bloody abortion is, but I can’t describe the picture to the full extent.  Pictures are worth a thousand words!”

This conversation did go on for about a half an hour and finally, when she was leaving, she said to me, “I hope you find a way to spread your message with love.”

I got the last word and said, “Well I already told you I was...”  Then she left without saying another word.

For Life and for the Little Ones,

Sarah

One of Those Days

“I’m tired!  I’m hungry!  My feet hurt!  Maybe I’ll just stay home and not come back after Easter break.”  I’m not going to lie.  These complaints have been running through my head recently.

Recently, I had been listening to a fellow teammate say that she was not going to come back to Campus Life Tour after Easter break.  I was thinking the same thing.  We were tired, hot, and we just wanted to go home.  When we went to a high school, we whined on the corner as we waited for students to come out.  I had been having a horrible head ache all day and I just wanted to sleep, but I knew it was my duty to stand up and educate these high schoolers what abortion really was.  Then the thought occured to me, I am not suffering as much as these babies who are going through abortion!  When I thought that, I was ashamed that I was so selfish in thinking that I wanted to go home, or sleep in the car.  Yes I admit it!  I was a selfish person, but as soon as I thought about those 3500 babies that would be dying that day, there was nothing that could be as worse as being ripped apart in your own mother’s womb.  I looked at my teammate, “Stop whining and think about those babies that are going to die today.  They are going through something worse than we are.”

Now I think about that all the time!  Even while I was at a high school this week. 

 We went to Moorpark High School and I met a couple kids while I was handing out literature.  A young man walked past me saying that he was pro-choice.  I thought that was going to be the last time I was going to see him, but he came back.  “Why are you outside of a high school?  We’re just kids!”

“Well yeah I know you guys are just kids, but the abortion industry is targeting you young people!  I am trying to educate you all what abortion really is before one of you gets into that situation.”  He was trying to defend the wrong side of the abortion debate after I told him that.

“Well it’s still a woman’s body.  She should have the right to do whatever to her body.”

“But that’s not her body.”  The boy chuckled as if I had just told a joke, “It has a separate set of DNA.  If it was the woman’s body, then she would have four arms, legs, eyes, and half of the time would have two different genders.  That doesn’t sound right does it?”

“Well it’s still inside her so it’s her body.  She should live with the consequences if she has an abortion.  She should know what’s happening when she gets an abortion.”

“So just because that child is inside means that the baby should not get rights like you and me?”

“Right because the baby is dependent on its mom.”

“An infant is dependent on the mother when she’s born, so what’s so different?  Based on what you are saying, it should be legal to kill newborns as well.”

“No, no, no.  That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You are saying that since the baby is dependent on her mom, it’s ok for the baby to be killed by an abortion.”  He chuckled to himself again and walked away.

“So you can look at this picture and say it’s okay?”

“Yeah I can.”  I could not believe that he had just said that!  If you were pro-abortion, would you look at the picture of an abortion and honestly say that you are okay with it?

After a few minutes after the young boy left, a girl walked passed me, “Did you get one of these?” I said holding out a piece of literature.

“What about all of those orphans that will never be adopted?”

“You don’t know for sure if those kids will never be adopted.  There are millions of families waiting to adopt here in America.”

“But American kids never get adopted.  It’s only the kids from overseas that get adopted.”

“So just because the child might end up in an orphanage means that it’s okay to rip that child limb by limb in her own mother’s womb?”

“Well what if the kid is going to be abused?”

“Look at this picture, abortion is the most abusive thing that that child can go through.”  She crossed her arms.

“But like I said, kids in America are never adopted.”

“Where did you get your source?  Let me look that up later.”

“I think it was like...prochoicenation.com.”

“Well that’s not a liable source.  Do you have another source that I can look up?”

When she saw that she had no other source, she changed the subject immediately, “Well the child in the womb is pretty much brain dead, so it can’t think for itself.”

“What about a man that is in a coma?  Should we have the right to kill him too?”

“Well yeah, if his family thinks it’s for the best.”

“So you think that killing is okay?  You don’t know if that man will come out of his coma or not, you can’t just assume that he will never wake up.”

“But then he will be dependant on everyone.  He won’t be able to feed himself or anything.”  When she said this, I thought of Terri Schiavo and her case.

“There was a young woman in Florida that was in a coma.  She came out of that coma and she could eat, she just had to have a feeding tube.”

“But we will be taking care of someone who is unresponsive.  She must have been just brain dead.”  So I explained more about what Terri was really doing.

“She was responsive!  She could move her eyes, laugh at her dad’s jokes, and eat with the feeding tube.  Just because she was disabled doesn’t mean that we should have the right to kill her.”  The girl seemed to be a little frustrated, but she was calm.

“So what happened to her?”

“Her feeding tube was taken away from her and she starved to death.  Her family did not want that to happen, but it did against their will.”

“Well I’m glad she’s out of her misery.”

“I just told you a minute ago that she would laugh at her dad’s jokes!  Even though she couldn’t do things that you and I could do, she was still happy to be alive.”  The girl rolled her eyes.

“I’m just glad they pulled the plug on her.”  I could not believe my ears.

“So you are alright with killing people?”  She thought about that for a second, and shockingly she said.

“Yeah I am.  I think that people who are in comas or who are suffering from cancer, or who want an abortion should have the right to kill the people that are a burden to us all.”  I was missing many students walking past while I was talking to this girl, so I told her,  “I cannot believe that you are alright with killing people.  You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“But I’m not.”  She said with a smug look on her face.

“Look at this picture that I am holding,” she looked at the picture, “Can you honestly say that you are okay with killing people in the womb and killing people outside the womb as well?”

“Yes.”  I was astonished at how arrogant she was being.

“Then you go tell your friends that you are okay with killing people.  How would they react?  Why would you say that?”  She didn’t want to talk to me anymore.  She turned around and began to walk away with her head held high.

It is amazing that kids at a high school are being taught such awful things.  It is also amazing that this generation is so arrogant.  It could have just been this high school, but the level of arrogance was so great that I just wanted to leave right then!  But I knew that I had to teach these kids what abortion really was whether they liked it or not.  At least I was planting a seed in them.  Sure I might get tired, frustrated and hungry, but I always have to keep in mind that thirty-five hundred children are going through something worse than I am everyday in America.

For Life and for the Little Ones,

Sarah