When a friend first asked me to join her at this protest, I was hesitant. I had never been to a protest like this before, so I wasn't sure what it would be like. I'm not entirely sure that protesting with signs is the way to end abortion and I wanted no parts of yelling at women who may have been entering the clinic. After some discussion and learning that John Piper was promoting this protest and planned to be at the one near him as well I became more open to it. I read this post from John Piper's site Desiring God and discovered I agreed with his points that sometimes in life we have cultural moments and seasons in life. We don't protest everyday, but when the opportunity like this comes around, we should see it as a season to speak out. We realized this was meant to be a peaceful and prayerful protest, so I agreed to go and we decided that if the attitude wasn't what it should be then we would leave. My sister Erin also ended up joining us.
The clinic actually ended up being closed that morning so the only people who saw our signs were those driving by. I actually felt better about this because I felt like the protest could be seen as a protest against Planned Parenthood and their practices and not against the women going in to their clinic. There was a crowd of about 270 people ranging from young to old, men and women. It appears a variety of people are against killing babies. It was very quiet and peaceful. We held signs, prayed and waved to the people driving by. We had a mix of responses from people, but I actually felt more people drove by and honked in support than those that drove by and shielded their faces or kindly flipped us the bird.
Later that evening I went on our local news channel's facebook pages to see if there had been any reports of this protest since we never saw any news crews out there. I was grateful to see they did cover the small story, but saddened - though not surprised - to see the responses of people commenting on it. Many stated we should mind our own business, what a woman does with her body doesn't concern us. Many said we weren't "pro-life" we were "pro-birth" (this is the newest argument against pro-lifers) and that we didn't care what happened to the baby after it was born. Some people argued that no one wanted babies because they might have health issues, which health issues happens to be the second to last reason that people abort their babies. I'm not a fan of getting into a comment war with people on facebook, but I had to respond to some people, with as much grace as possible of course! Isn't it heartbreaking to know that so many people don't see a baby as a life that's worth living? That baby had no choice in who conceived it or even how it was conceived. It didn't ask to be an accident. But once it is conceived, its alive. Once it is alive, it has a right to be born. How can you determine what that child's quality of life will be? Can you look at anyone who is alive right now and tell them they should have never been born?! I can't get over the fact that if a woman wants a baby she will ooh and ahh over her 12 week ultrasound pictures and marvel at the little human wiggling around in side of her, but if she doesn't want the baby??? Well, then its perfectly legal to be rid of it. The hypocrisy astounds me!
We had the chance to talk to the local organizer of this event and learned about their fight to end abortion here in our area. There are 3 abortion clinics in this area, and they have done the research to figure out which days each clinic performs the abortions and they even know the cars of the doctors who do the unspeakable, so they know if those cars are the in the parking lot, they need to be there hoping to convince women to take an alternative route.
I know this fight isn't a new fight. It's been going on for decades. But with the recent release of all of these undercover videos, the fight is gaining momentum. Already 5 states have defunded Planned Parenthood and 13 more are investigating into their practices. I don't know where my place is in this war yet, but I feel like it's time for our generation to join in - fresh soldiers on the battlefield. This might mean volunteering at my local Crisis Pregnancy Center, I honestly don't know. But I'm going to be looking for it. I hope you'll be looking for a way to join in as well.
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