After attending mass on Saturday evening, I was handed a bulletin on my way out the doors. Inside, it had a disturbing fact:
41% of pregnancies in New York City end in abortion.
Upon reading this, my husband and I talked about all the people, all the special souls God made, that never came to be.
And maybe it's because we look forward to having a little one of our own, or because we love our soon-to-be-here niece or nephew so much even before knowing them, or because every time we see our niece and nephews we're filled with joy -- but to think of all those little ones who never came to be because of humanity's selfishness is just heartbreaking.
Below is an opinion article I wrote that was printed in my current city's newspaper a few years ago. I was involved in a campus pro-life organization called "CFL" -- Collegians For Life while attending my university. In the spring of 2008, we voted and decided to bring the controversial "
Genocide Awareness Project" (GAP). This article was a response to some of the public's detestation of the presentation and abortion in general. If you're not sure how you feel about abortion (and even, or maybe especially, if you
are), I hope it just makes you reconsider a bit... that, or change your mind completely :)
Published Saturday, April 26, 2008
In response to Deb White’s article in the April 17 Forum, “Exhibit offensive, exploitive”:
Does Genocide Awareness Project utilize photographs from the Holocaust and of lynched African-Americans? Yes. But it also utilizes photographs of children from every culture. These children are sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, grandsons, granddaughters, sons and daughters of everyone. They are part of every culture. They are the past, present and future generations who never had a chance at life.
That said, I’d like to share some insight from a Rwandan woman who saw the GAP display on her college campus. She walked by and pointed at the picture of a child murdered in Rwanda on one of the signs, saying that it portrayed what happened to members of her family.
The GAP team member expressed deep sympathy, apologizing for any pain the photographs were inflicting, adding, “What do you think?” The woman thought a moment, pointed at the aborted babies in front of her, and said, “They had it worse. My people could run. These children had no chance.”
One cannot say that people “vehemently disagree” with GAP’s message just because it shows how awful their ancestors were treated. In fact, Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece, Alveda King, supports GAP. Last August, she said “the killing of a quarter of the black population of the United States has not been from lynch mobs, but from abortionists, who plant their killing centers in minority neighborhoods and prey upon women who think they have no hope … the great irony is that abortion has done what the Klan only dreamed of.”
In the United States, abortion facilities and offices of Planned Parenthood are often concentrated in poor areas where the black population is especially targeted. King also pointed out that “in the last 40-plus years, 15 million black people have been denied their most basic civil right, the right to life. Roughly one-quarter of the black population is now missing.”
The goal of GAP and Collegians for Life isn’t to show some grotesque images for “shock value” but to increase awareness. If we are so disgusted and repulsed by photographs of abortion, why do we let it happen? Making it invisible does not make it nonexistent. The truth of the matter is this: Abortion is awful, brutal, inhumane and murder. No matter what your stance – pro-life or pro-choice – you should know what you are endorsing.
In September 1955, a young African-American named Emmett Till was brutally murdered for senseless reasons. His body, especially his face, was a horrible sight, but when asked if she wanted a closed casket, his mother said, “No. Let the people see what I have seen. I think everybody needs to know what had happened to Emmett Till.”
More than 50,000 people saw what happened to Till because of his mother’s decision. A magazine also published a photo of his body, exposing millions around the globe to this act of brutality. This event is considered to be the “sleeping giant” of the civil rights movement – 100 days later, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, and four days after that, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his first civil rights speech.
This truth that Emmett Louis Till’s mother decided to share with the world changed the course of history forever. Was it gruesome and unpleasant to witness? Yes. But did it wake people up to a huge atrocity? Indeed. Maybe if we follow the example of Mrs. Till and share another gruesome and unpleasant truth, people will wake up again.
