The Sidewalk: Where the Prolife Movement Belongs
I remain convinced that the central weakness of the prolife movement is its failure to be regularly present at the abortion facilities—because, quite simply, if we believe that each unborn child is eternally unique and significant, then at the very least we should be at the places where the child’s social and eternal value will be brutally, irrevocably denied. Nevertheless, an insignificant percentage of the prolife movement makes even occasional appearances at the death facilities. Ironically, the pro-abortion presence, at least in Detroit, lately has been quite healthy: last weekend, for example, we were outnumbered 3 to 1.
One reason the prolife presence at the abortion facilities is rare is becauseproliferstruly want to serve the cause of life. Whereas the pro-abortion presence outside the clinics is merely for the sake of making a statement (because without God, their lives become frantic attempts to make themselves significant), prolifers put their time and energy where they think they will be most effective.
Unfortunately, they are considering effectiveness in the same way that the world considers it. Success, for most of us, must be a measurable thing—measured in how many appointments we have recorded in our notebook and in how many times each day the cell phone rings. Being present at an abortion facility, however, is usually a very frustrating experience, simply because there’s very little one can measurably do. And while you stand there, sometimes with the wind whipping around and the clients rushing in without even bothering to become angry with you,then the world starts to whisper in your ear, “Is this the best use of your time? Are you really being effective?” This is the moment at which the prolifer discovers that, rather than being “effective,”on the contrary he is accomplishing little more than an intense sort of suffering. This is the time at which he must remember--our suffering is our effectiveness.
Willingness to suffer is willingness to love, an act which takes us to the very source of life, to the springs of its growth. Time after time, in the midst of the most bleak circumstances, Guadalupe Workers have seen life flame out; we have seen mothers and fathers smile, thank us and leave. We have seen an abortion clinic at which we counseled for two years close, the business having been so affected by our presence that the abortionist was evicted for unpaid rent. Even without these obvious signs of life, though, we would go, trying to be the still presence we are called to be.
The Guadalupe Workers would like to invite you to a special three hour seminar, December 10, in which you will be encouraged to come out and stand at the foot of the cross with the unborn child. But you will also be shown how that willingness to suffer can have miraculous results, far beyond anything that our own ideas of effectiveness can calculate.
Attached to this letter, then, please find a flyer with all pertinent details.
Also, please help us in any way you can to distribute the flyer through your own media contacts.
Learn how to be a sidewalk counselor.
As long as there is love, death can have no victory.