For Love

I recently wrote a letter to a close friend of mine talking about love. It seems that I've been hearing about love everywhere now, whether it's God's love for us, our love for puppies, or love for our enemies. Particularly, love for all the abortion people. I've spoken briefly about my feelings toward pro-abortioners in my post about generalization "They're All Devils". I've developed since then; I can honestly say I'm starting to feel love towards these people. Not my love. I'm not capable of that. God's love.

I'll try to explain why. And how. Though it may be unexplainable.

Maybe it's because of Abby Johnson and her book Unplanned. I finished re-reading it a few hours ago. But then, maybe she's easy to love, because she's on our side now. She's obviously a very loving, warm-hearted person, and that's what drove her to first work at Planned Parenthood as a volunteer: a heart for people in crisis. She followed all the talking points and everything, and called peaceful, praying pro-lifers harrassers, but still, that's all behind us now, right?

Besides, there are all the negative things. The pro-abortion blogs and articles, where they freely spew filth and can make innocent ears quickly grow older. There are the disgusting clinics, stories of cold-hearted nurses and doctors, moving from one patient to the next as quickly as they can. The obvious lies. The protests to absolutely anything that might make the public think of the fetuses as human.

Except...that isn't all there is to it. There are the stories of kind nurses and doctors. There are the people who claim to have no regret. There are the pro-abortion blogs that tell stories of women relieved and thankful, of clean facilities, and kind-hearted people. The war zones. The disgust towards violent anti-choicers...and they're right. The sacrifice of funds and living space and time and energy. Low salaries. And they keep going.

But there's no doubt we're in a war. Hitler could have been the kindliest, warmest, most loving person in the world, but that doesn't make him right.

I read a website that had stories upon stories written by former abortion advocates (and yes, some actual abortionists). There are videos. People in tears. Perhaps this is what convicts me to pray for the pro-abortioners.

They're lost. They are so lost. And it breaks my heart. I hear stories all the time about what goes on in those clinics, even if they are sanitary and completely law-abiding and never send women to the hospital from botched abortions. Nightmares, alcohol, and marijuana.

Maybe there's a clean, law-abiding, safe, never-send-women-to-hospital, alcohol-and-marijuana-free clinic where no workers ever have nightmares about their jobs. They're all warm and friendly too and love the women they serve. They're truly pro-choice, and make as many adoption referalls and give as much parenting help as they give abortions. Even if this clinic existed, it doesn't make them right. It doesn't make them not lost. It doesn't make them non-empty. It simply doesn't compute.  I don't care how much they tell me they are perfectly happy champions of women, because I know it's not true. Abortion = no God = emptiness.

I'm reminded of Frank Peretti's book Prophet. Where a man begins to hear the anguished screaming of lost souls during his everyday life.

It doesn't matter if they will never be "converted". It doesn't matter if they participate in two hundred abortions a day. Love them for love's own sake. Why? We are commanded to. And they are God's children. Hitler was God's son. They are all God's children just as much as the children they are killing. Screaming at them, degrading them, and telling them to go f-bomb themselves isn't right, and it doesn't even work. Calling them baby-killers doesn't work. So please don't do it. Pray for them. Wish them a good day. You may never see the seeds you plant germinate, but plant them anyway. Love.

All images found via Google Images. Video taken from YouTube. No copyright infringement intended.

How Not to Protest

My last post was a review of Abby Johnson’s book Unplanned. There’s a reason I decided to do that review, besides just introducing you to a fabulous pro-life resource. The other reason is today’s post.

I actually have only been to one abortion clinic protest. I’ll say that right up front. I have wanted to go to them regularly ever since I started studying the abortion debate at the ripe old age of thirteen. The one protest I did attend was a Bound4Life prayer vigil, where I stood for one hour with other protestors, all lined up on the sidewalk beside an abortion clinic, praying, with the word “LIFE” written on red duct tape over our mouths. (I assure you, my attendance at such protests will rise drastically as soon as possible.)

What I’m about to say here then is, obviously, not taken from my own experience. Most of it is taken from the powerful experience of Abby Johnson—a Planned Parenthood director for eight years, turned pro-life advocate—and from other pro-life people, as well as current abortion advocates. I’m blogging about a subject I don’t have much first-hand experience on because I think it’s extremely important.

I posted about generalizing groups of people a few weeks ago. There is a reason that pro-lifers are often painted as reckless, harassing extremists (besides that opponents love to paint each other black). Because there really are reckless, harassing extremist pro-lifers.

Clinic Escorts

Abortion clinics often have “escorts” that go out and walk clients into the clinic. They have these escorts because of the pro-life protestors that try to convince the woman to not go in.

Note those last seven words. “Convince the woman to not go in.” Ultimately, that’s what protestors outside abortion clinics are trying to do. In most, if not all, cases, the woman going in for the abortion is scared, hurt, and often alone. She may or may not be absolutely dedicated to getting the abortion, but she wants—or feels that she needs—to go in. Which do you think will convince her to stay out? Screaming people waving signs with pictures of aborted babies? That only encourages her to flee—inside, where it’s quiet and safe. Or will it be the peaceful, prayer for people, saying gently to her, “You don’t have to do this. We’re here to help. We can help you, for free. You don’t need to go through with this today.”

Are you going to convince her to stay out and talk to you when you’re screaming at her?

Of course, from what I’ve seen and read, pro-abortioners will label any type of protest as harassment. Just because they say its harassment doesn’t mean it is. Peaceful, gentle protests are effective.

From Unplanned:

"'Uh-oh. They got one,' my trainer said. 'I wish they'd leave these poor women alone. Do they have to harass them over such a personal decision?'...

"I watched as the pro-lifer handed our client some literature--she didn't look like she felt harassed to me. Clearly, she'd chosen to talk to the pro-lifer...If we are pro-choice, I thought, ...why do we feel we need to protect clients from conversatoiins about their choices?"

Strong, loud, violent opposition (abortionist shooters, I’m looking at you) only strengthens the other side. There’s nothing like opposition that solidifies the troops. (From Unplanned, after the murder of George Tiller, an infamous late-term abortionist: "Dr. Tiller's death...solidified our ause...rallied our sense of being the despised yet brave advocates for women's health and well being...")

Peaceful prayer and counseling, on the other hand, create quite a different feeling. (From Unplanned, about the 40 Days for Life campaign: "Forty days and forty nights--those are biblical proportions! That's a long time to be surrounded nonstop by a large group of people who disagree with you but are so persistently...well...nice about it. It created an atmosphere I couldn't quite articulate.")

 I could go on with more quotes, but for sake of conciseness, I won’t.

Also, I’m not saying there’s never a time for pictures of abortion and chanting pro-life slogans. There are. I only became dedicated to the pro-life cause when I saw pictures of abortion. I already knew what abortion did, but the pictures “hit it home”, so to speak. As for chanting pro-life slogans…let’s save that for the Walk for Life or to counter a PP lobby day. Not when trying this exact time and place to save lives.

Pro-abortioners claim that sidewalk counselors or other peaceful protestors change nothing, therefore we are useless, therefore go home and keep your mouth shut. Don’t listen to them. If I spent my whole life volunteering at sidewalk counseling or a crisis pregnancy center and only helped save one baby from abortion, it’d be worth it. It’s always worth it.

Images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.

Pro-Life Book Review: "Unplanned", by Abby Johnson

I have referenced Abby Johnson in multiple blog posts before. In one sentence, she’s a Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life advocate.

Unplanned is about her journey through Planned Parenthood; starting with her volunteering as a college student, finishing with her, the director of a clinic, assisting in an ultrasound-guided abortion on a thirteen-week-old fetus. Eight years working with Planned Parenthood. And then she walked out.

Actually, she ran out. Literally. Not during the abortion procedure, but later, shaken, wondering what to do, wondering if she could continue working with an organization that performed abortions, now that she had seen what abortion really did. She ran out of the building, in tears, got in her car, and drove to the Coalition for Life building: the peaceful pro-life protestors she had been fighting ever since coming to that Planned Parenthood as a volunteer.

Her story is powerful and valuable. She gives an insider’s look on what it’s really like working in an abortion clinic. A Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. She doesn’t sugar-coat her old workplace, but she doesn’t completely bash it either. And that makes it ten times more reliable. She tells the truth. She tells of the old, dear friendships she had with her coworkers. She tells how her bosses, while still saying to the public that Planned Parenthood’s goal is to reduce abortions, ordered her to make her clinic crank out more abortions to get the revenue up. And then, when she protested, how they told her to “get her priorities straight”.

Abortion advocates are afraid of Abby Johnson, and they’re afraid of her book. They pretend they aren’t. They call her the exception. They call her a nutcase. They call her a liar. They say that she was about to get fired because she mishandled confidential information, and that was the only reason she resigned.

A dedicated, compassionate eight-year-long volunteer, worker, director, 2008 “Employee of the Year” not only quits her job but goes to join the people she had been fighting for all of those eight years just because she was afraid of getting fired?

I don’t think so.

Getting down to the technicalities, Abby Johnson wrote this book “with” Cindy Lambert. I don’t know how much Cindy Lambert contributed, or if Cindy Lambert was really mostly the author. However, regardless if Abby wrote most of it or not, the story is still Abby’s, and it’s still powerful. Whoever really wrote it, she did it well. The book is very easy to read, very fascinating, very personal. Abby leaves nothing out. I find the style a little annoying in the first few chapters, where she tells you part of the story, and then at the ends of the chapters she hints at other things that she doesn’t tell you until you are further in. However, this annoying quirk doesn’t last long, and certainly doesn’t disqualify it as a worthwhile read. I’ll illustrate for you how much I liked it.

When I first heard Unplanned was coming out, I was very excited, but the line for it was very long at the library, and I’m the sort of person who doesn’t like to buy books unless she’s read them. (I have, as I like to say, spendaphobia.)

Well, after getting irritated with the wait, I found it at a homeschooler’s convention, flipped through it, and bought it spur of the moment. I started it in the car on the way home (don’t worry, I wasn’t driving) and I read it all the way through that evening, until two or three in the morning.

I put it down for a month or so, then picked it back up, thinking I’d like to flip through it again.

I read it straight through again.

I picked it up a few days ago and pretty much read it straight through once more…but not quite. It was spread out over two days, maybe three, I don’t remember.

I’d like to leave you with a quote from the book.

"Looking back now on that late September day of 2009, I realize how wise God is for not revealing our future to us. Had I known then the firestorm I was about to endure, I might not have had the courage to move forward. As it was, since I didn't know, I wasn't yet looking for courage. I was, however, looking to understand how I found myself in this place--living a lie, spreading a lie, and hurting the ery women I so wanted to help.

And I desperately need to know what to do next.

This is my story."

Images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.