From the Trenches: A Separate Peace
/by Lauren Handy, Campus Outreach Team
Have you ever felt the weight of 55 million deaths? Did it stop you in your tracks? Were you filled with dread?
During activism there are certain phrases people like to throw our way. As a team, we have become use to this and work together to take down each argument. But there is this one phrase that still bothers me long after leaving the campus and that is, “Abortion is never going to become illegal!”
I always clam up after hearing this; and when the pro-abort sees my reaction, they walk away with a smirk.
I often imagine a world without abortion. I find myself reflecting on how life would be different, where I would be and what our country’s future would hold. But no matter how hard I think, I can never actually see such a world. During quiet moments, these thoughts seem to come back to the surface and they surfaced again when I was sitting under a willow tree in San Francisco park.
It was a clear and bright day. I could see relationships blooming and families budding. Life was everywhere and was making itself unashamedly known. Is this what an abortion free world will look like? Carefree and bright with life? But these thoughts don’t last long because in the back of my mind a darkness is creeping its way to the front. Life as an activist is challenging, what with the fact that you cannot hide away from the truth. So of course I asked myself, “How many miles away is the nearest abortion mill?” and just like that reality reared its head. The park was no longer a separate peace but a grim comparison.
This is why it is so important to go out to college campuses to spread awareness about abortion with the Campus Outreach Team. I am burdened with the truth that one third of my generation is gone and knowing this, action is needed to change this culture of death. If I want to see a world without abortion then I need to do something. Anything, small or big, in promoting pro-life values further strikes down the abortion industry. Results will never happen if we do not step out of our comfort zone. Sophie Scholl once said, “The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes.” This apathy is what’s clouding the vision of an abortion-free world. So I say now that we break through that fog and put actions behind our words. As a team we are able to reach so many people each day. We are helping to immerse our culture the value of human life.
Being reaffirmed by this hope, I now have a response to the pro-abort’s statement, “Abortion is never going to become illegal!” and that is, it will be illegal -- by our changing hearts and minds a world without abortion is achievable. Each child saved, every family preserved puts us one step closer to such a world. We can do this by working in fellowship and encouraging each other. For when the darkness creeps in, we have the light to go forward.
What did you do today to change this reality of death that weighs on our country through abortion?
