EmpowerShop Pro-life

From LifeNews.com

I am going to be honest…when I first left Planned Par­ent­hood, I hated the idea of the “res­cue” move­ment. I didn’t see the point. I thought it was a black mark against the pro-life movement.

Then I started meet­ing peo­ple who had once res­cued. I started to see some­thing that I had not before…these were nor­mal peo­ple. Men, women, old, young, White, Black, His­panic, Priests, Pas­tors, Laity…so dif­fer­ent, but all one goal…to save babies.

These peo­ple had been con­victed to do SOMETHING because noth­ing was being done. There were no peace­ful vigils…very lim­ited side­walk counseling…not many laws to guide pro-life activ­ity. I started to wonder…what if I had been pro-life dur­ing the res­cue move­ment? Would I have been will­ing to sac­ri­fice my free­dom in order to save babies and take a stand against abortion?

When I became direc­tor of the Planned Par­ent­hood clinic in Bryan, my life changed. All of a sud­den, I was acutely aware of the respon­si­bil­ity that sat on my shoul­ders. I was now the face of that clinic. If some­thing went wrong, it was now on my head. I worked all the time…usually about 70 hours per week. I was addicted to my job…addicted to the respon­si­bil­ity. I car­ried heavy burdens…many were self inflicted. I will share with you my heaviest.

Every day I would arrive at work and check the sched­ule. Not because I had an enor­mous amount of employ­ees or because I wanted to micro­man­age and see who was late…nothing like that. I wanted to look and see who was there that day. I wanted to place them in the clinic…where would they usu­ally be? Why would that be impor­tant? Every day I pre­pared for some­one to come in and harm us. Maybe they would bomb our clinic. Maybe they would shoot us. I didn’t know how it would hap­pen, but I was ready.

I wanted to know where my employ­ees would be in the clinic so I could rapidly get them out and keep me in. I fig­ured that if some­one wanted to harm one of us, it would be best to go after me…I was the most respon­si­ble for the abor­tions that hap­pened in that clinic. Surely I would be a good enough sac­ri­fice. That was my bur­den every day. I was will­ing to DIE for the sake of abortion.

I look back now and real­ize how self­ish I was. I had a child. I am a wife…a daugh­ter. How could I have even enter­tained that thought? Be a mar­tyr for abor­tion? Ridicu­lous. But back then, I would have done it with­out question.

So, would I have been involved in the res­cue move­ment? You bet. I was will­ing to DIE for abor­tion when I was pro-choice. It would have been an honor to risk jail time in order to save lives if I would have been pro-life.

Luck­ily, I don’t have to worry about that risk. None of us do. We are able to go and peace­fully pray out­side of abor­tion clin­ics when­ever we choose. We are able to side­walk coun­sel. We can thank the res­cue move­ment for that. The res­cue move­ment came about like most…people were frus­trated and they wanted to do something…anything. There was no such thing as effec­tive and strate­gic side­walk coun­sel­ing. There were few places where you could go and stand in a “pub­lic right of way.”

Abor­tions were hap­pen­ing and there seemed to be noth­ing any­one could do about it. How could pro-lifers reach the women? If they stood out on the side­walks, they would most likely be arrested and they wouldn’t be able to talk to any­one. How can they talk to them inside the clin­ics? They had to get in those abor­tion clin­ics. Yes, it was trespassing…yes, it was illegal…but so was stand­ing out on the side­walks in most cases. So, they orga­nized and they went. They trespassed…they broke the law…they were arrested…they saved thou­sands of babies. They were not vio­lent. How could they be? They were there to show women the alter­na­tive to abortion…the most vio­lent act com­mit­ted against a child. In fact, dur­ing the res­cue move­ment, 75,000 arrests were made…not one of those arrests were made for any vio­lent act.

The res­cue move­ment came, laws were bro­ken, new laws were made, orga­nized side­walk coun­sel­ing began to form, and the res­cue move­ment died. The pro-life move­ment evolved, as it should. The pro-life move­ment con­tin­ues to get bet­ter. If we were still doing the same thing from 20 years ago it would show fail­ure. Ideas change. Tech­nol­ogy changes. Laws change. Peo­ple change. If there is one thing we can be sure of it is this…never be sure of any­thing. This world is con­stantly evolving…just like this move­ment. Some things work, some things don’t. The res­cue move­ment worked for the time. It is not a viable option now…not in this country.

I am so grate­ful for those that risked their free­dom to save the lives of chil­dren. I wish all pro-lifers had that same courage. I am thank­ful that they did something…they didn’t just sit around and wait for abor­tion to resolve itself. They made a dif­fer­ence. They saved lives. I don’t think many of us real­ize how much we owe to this group of pro-lifers.

My life was changed because of an ultra­sound and side­walk coun­selors. Both parts were equally impor­tant in my story.

With­out the laws that came about from the res­cue move­ment, those side­walk coun­selors prob­a­bly wouldn’t have been there. And with­out those side­walk coun­selors, their prayers and their con­stant out­reach, I couldn’t have crossed that line. It takes all of us fight­ing this battle…different tech­niques, dif­fer­ent groups, dif­fer­ent types of peo­ple. And even now, many of us are “res­cuers.” We just res­cue in a dif­fer­ent way. We are out on the side­walks, talk­ing to women moments before they walk into an abor­tion clinic. Or maybe we are coun­selors in a preg­nancy cen­ter who talk to women after they have a pos­i­tive preg­nancy test. Maybe we are hot­line oper­a­tors who coun­sel young women dur­ing a time of cri­sis. Yes, res­cues still hap­pen, but they hap­pen in a very dif­fer­ent way now.

And even though times have changed, we must look back and be thank­ful for our past and for those ded­i­cated pro-lifers who paved the way for us today.