Teen Activists Champion Life

James Balch has had female friends tell him that abortion is none of his business, nor anyone else’s.
But Balch, 15, makes it his business.

“This is not just a women’s issue,” he told Our Sunday Visitor. “This is a human issue, and the effects of abortion are incomprehensible.”

Balch, who lives in Fredericksburg, Va., is a member of his local Teens for Life chapter, and in June, he joined young people from across the country at the 38th Annual National Right to Life Committee’s Convention held in Pittsburgh, Pa.

It also was the 25th anniversary of the founding of National Teens For Life, part of NRLC based in Washington, D.C. Guest speakers included Jack St. Martin, of Maryland, the founding president of NTL when he was 16.

Humanitarian issue

“There’s a lot that young people can do to support pro-life,” Balch said. “It’s an issue so fully integrated into our society that any of us on the front lines, when we speak to our friends and peers, can have an effect on them now and in the future.”

His parents, Burke and Mary Balch, are pro-life, and both spoke at the Teens for Life convention. His sister, Bridget, 18, was president of a pro-life group in high school and is a member of another group in college.

“I was always taught to appreciate the value of life, and I know the very harmful effects that abortion and other things that degrade life have on our society,” Balch told OSV. “My Catholic faith has played into this, to a certain extent, but this isn’t strictly a religious issue. This is very much a humanitarian issue.”

Armed with facts

One of the biggest challenges for a pro-life teen, he said, is facing “animosity, preconceived, judgmental and even extreme” reactions from peers who are pro-choice. So NTL members are prepared with solid facts — for instance, accurate details about the stages of development of an unborn child.

“I know how to respond to these people,” said Bethany Schumacher, 19, of Menasha, Wis., who will be a junior at University of Wisconsin in Madison this fall. “Our organization encourages members to be loving, compassionate and calm, and I have an answer and a fact for every argument that my peers can throw at me. Getting past their emotional defense is probably the hardest part.”

However, she added, “apathy is their biggest defense.”

“They say that they would never have an abortion, but that they wouldn’t stand in the way of someone else’s rights,” she said. “Obviously, that’s not how we [in pro-life] feel about it. It really is an injustice that needs to be corrected, no matter who is involved.”
Schumacher comes from a “big Catholic family” of nine children, including two who are adopted. Her parents are Phil and Karen Schumacher.

“I really didn’t know much about pro-life and abortion when I was little,” she said. “When my sister Maria was a freshman in high school, they started learning about it, and she asked our mom and started investigating on her own. To her, abortion seemed inherently wrong.”

Maria Schumacher became involved in a pro-life group for teens, and when she died at age 14 after being struck by a car while walking with a friend, Bethany Schumacher, then in the sixth grade, joined the movement. She is a member of the Fox Valley chapter of Wisconsin Right To Life, and is involved in teen leadership camps for state members.

“This movement is the most important issue of our day,” she said. “There’s poverty and there’s war, and there are injustices all across the world. This is a fundamental issue that’s happening in our neighborhoods, our schools and in our churches. It’s so easy to get involved and to share the simple message of life, love and hope. You can impact so many people.”

Derrick Jones

Derrick Jones of Washington, D.C., grew up in the pro-life movement and came of age moving up the ranks. At 14, he co-founded a teen group in Springfield, Ill., served on the national board and in 1994, at 16, was president of National Teens for Life. He is now NTL communications director and co-adviser.

“Our adult chapters mentor the younger generations, and many of those teens go on to help lead the movement, myself included,” he told OSV during the convention in Pittsburgh. “There really is a continuity, and it’s training the next generation to one day take over the leadership reins and take the movement further into the 21st century.”

The teens, he said, are very educated on end of life, euthanasia and assisted suicide issues, too.

“The issues we deal with are very challenging and there are different ones every year,” Jones said. “We are not battling just political or legal reality. We are dealing with a cultural reality as well, and it’s a battle to change hearts and minds. But I am confident that we will see the day that legal protection is returned to unborn children.”

Jones, raised a Catholic, has a personal interest in the pro-life movement. His mother, he said, was young, unmarried and pregnant — “a prime target for the abortion industry.”

She chose life.

“You realize that you are one of the lucky ones,” he said. “A lot of us have stories like that and become pro-life almost as a sense of duty. You realize that something has to give, something has to stop, so you get involved and educate your peers about what abortion has done to our generation and what it has done to our friends.”

Joleigh Little

Joleigh Little didn’t have a strong opinion about pro-life issues when she was in high school, she said, “But I started researching it and talking about it, and I realized how important it was. I prayed about it and told God that if he wanted me to do something about it, I would. And 25 years later, I still am.”

In 1984, Little, now 39, of Solon Springs, Wis., was one of the founders of a pro-life group for teens in her area. She is now a co-adviser for National Teens For Life and also the Teens For Life director for the Wisconsin Right To Life.

“This is the greatest cause of our time, and it’s a privilege to see young people standing up and speaking out, because it’s their generation that’s being destroyed by abortion,” she said.

Little, who belongs to a non-denominational church, has praise for the unity that binds pro-life people of different faiths, and even no faith at all.

“There are a lot of denominational differences among Christians,” she said. “But when it comes to life, you don’t notice who’s Catholic, Protestant, or anything else.”

WRITTEN BY: Maryann Gogniat Eidemiller with original article at Our Sunday Visitor available by clicking on the title of this posting

America's Pro-Life Movement Gaining Steam

There is little doubt that abortion is a complex and multifaceted issue. With divergent viewpoints and a muddled “middle ground," it is common for public opinion polls to yield seemingly contradictory results.

Despite the perceived difficulties in definitively determining abortion perspectives, recent developments expose a public that is steadily growing warmer to the pro-life point of view. If this trend continues, there will be intriguing social and political implications, especially considering the surprising stance Millennials are taking on the issue.

One could argue that the nation's ongoing abortion debate re-fueled and intensified following President Obama's controversial speech at the University of Notre Dame in May 2009. Since the widely publicized event, journalists and researchers have attempted to qualify recent polls that corroborate an increase in pro-life sentiments. In May 2009 Gary Langer, the director of polling at ABC News, wrote, abortion is “a highly fraught subject—and one of those on which a single polling number does not begin to describe the complexity of Americans' attitudes.”

Langer says that the majority of Americans are actually pro-life and pro-choice simultaneously. For instance, some people may believe that abortion should be legal, but only in specific cases (i.e. rape or if the woman's life is in danger). In this case, the stance calls for legal abortion (pro-choice sentiment), but only in very specific circumstances (pro-life sentiment). In either case, an individual who subscribes to these beliefs is essentially aligning him or herself with both poles of the abortion debate—albeit, to different degrees.
Interestingly, Langer is not alone in his conclusions. In May 2009, New York Times journalist Dalia Sussman urged readers to be cautious when jumping to the conclusion that America may actually be embracive of pro-life tenants. According to Sussman, “[Asking if someone is “pro-life” or “pro-choice”] creates absolutes, when in reality, abortion really represents an issue in which there aren’t any absolutes for many (if not most) people.”

While this may be a valid argument in terms of recognizing complexities in perception, it is entirely possible that a slight majority of Americans are still avoiding absolutes, while sliding, albeit slowly, toward a more pro-life world view. Statistics from multiple sources corroborate this notion. One does not have to be “absolute” in a belief to lean more in one direction than another.

Imagine a line on which one charts his or her support on a scale from zero to 10 (10 being “extremely favorable” of abortion rights). Now, picture millions of people plotted along this continuum. While individuals may hold diverse beliefs on the subject, chances are that a majority would find itself on either end (this is to say before or after the five, or middle ground, placement) of the spectrum. For instance, an individual who opposes abortion, yet thinks that it should be legal in cases of rape, may choose a three on the continuum, instead of a zero. Here, this person clearly opposes abortion, while possessing some sense that it should be permitted in select circumstances. Even though his or her opinion isn't an extreme (a zero or 10), the individual still leans more in favor of pro-life sentiments.

Despite resistance from some journalists and researchers who cannot fathom a reduction in support for pro-abortion arguments, public opinion polls continue to reflect a collective, albeit slow, movement away from pro-choice-ism. In Oct. 2009, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life was one of many reputable sources to recognize a drop in support for abortion. Pew found that, while abortion supporters outnumbered foes in 2007 and 2008, the two sides are now equal in number. Additionally, Pew wrote that “there have been modest increases in the numbers who favor reducing abortions or making them harder to obtain.” And most surprisingly: “Less support for abortion is evident among most demographic and political groups.”
Perhaps most intriguing is the closure in the generational gap. According to Gallup, those Americans aged 18 to 29 and 30 to 49 were most supportive of abortion rights in the late 1970s. This pattern has evolved since 2000, with all age groups aside from seniors (65 and older), sharing similar views on abortion. Not surprisingly, seniors remain the “least likely to favor legal abortion.”

Now for the bombshell:

Gallup found that between 2005 and 2009, among those individuals who are 18 to 29 years of age, there has been a nine-percentage-point increase in the belief that abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances.” This essentially means that young Americans are nearly tied with seniors in their belief that abortion should be eradicated.

Interestingly, this group is also frequently pointed out by the left to be strongly in favor of more liberal social and political policy. However, young people appear to be moving more in line with conservatives on this issue, further corroborating the notion that Millennials may not be sold on progressive policies.

Make no mistake, opinions about abortion have not shifted radically on the whole. That said, public perception appears to be sliding in the pro-life direction. In 2001, Gallup asked respondents if they saw abortion has morally acceptable or morally unacceptable; 42% said that abortion is morally acceptable, with 45% stating the contrary. In 2010, this same poll found only 38% claiming that abortion is moral, with 50% stating the opposing view, that abortion is immoral.

Abortion will continue to be a highly controversial topic in American political and social circles, as both sides argue in support of their respective stances. With Millennials poised to inherit future leadership posts, the generation's less-favorable abortion perspective offers an intriguing conundrum to the left. In the end, it is the Millennial generation that will create the laws and monitor the policies that govern this highly contentious subject.

WRITTEN BY: Billy Hallowell with original article at Human Events available by clicking on the title of this blog entry

The Canonization of George Tiller

Late-term abortionist George Tiller has been buried. His clinic has been permanently closed. It is being reported that candlelight vigils were held across America for him and that another late-term abortionist has compared him to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Pro-choice” Christian ministers called him a “martyr in the classical sense.” One even called him a “saint.” That he was killed in a church certainly contributed to the hagiography.

Anyone who claims to value all human life should condemn his murder, but that does not mean we should refrain from telling the truth about this alleged saint.

Let’s assume he was not in it for the reported $6,000-$20,000 he charged per late-term abortion, or the fees he charged for the other abortions, 60,000 total, which left him a well-heeled man by all accounts.

Let’s stipulate that he believed in abortion on the level of religious commitment, that abortion was for him what one of his minister-supporters called it: a sacrament.

Let’s say he was a believer in abortion on the order of the Christian martyrs of the second century who were torn apart by wild beasts for their refusal to reject the Christian God. Let us stipulate to all of that. But for what cause, exactly, was he a martyr?

We are told he was a martyr for women. But not one of the late-term abortions he did was to save a woman’s life, according to Kansas health department records. Tiller was not in the life-saving business.

Was he a martyr for some postmodern notion of freedom? Those celebrating his life’s work are most comfortable with abstract terms like “choice,” but we understand that there is real flesh and blood behind the sloganeering – that they are celebrating the work of this man’s hands. Tiller’s late-term abortions were described to the Kansas state legislature:

Tiller or his staff would inject a drug called digoxin through the mother’s abdomen and into the heart of the living baby, killing the child. The mother then has a dead baby in her womb for up to four days as she waits to deliver. The mothers would wait in a local hotel. When the time came to expel her dead baby one Tiller patient, Michele Armesto-Berge, told Kansas lawmakers that Tiller’s staff made her sit over and give “birth” to her dead baby into a toilet.

This is what Tiller did to countless vulnerable women and to countless viable children, children who felt pain, children who could have lived outside the womb if given the chance. If George Tiller was a martyr, he was a martyr to this.

Indeed, Martin Luther King’s niece, Alveda King, said of the comparisons of Tiller to her uncle: “to mention the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., who worked through peaceful and nonviolent means, in the same breath with that of George Tiller, whose work ended peace and brought violence to babies in the womb, is offensive beyond belief.”

Until Sunday morning, public opinion about abortion was moving towards pro-life positions. Three recent polls confirmed that Americans’ views on abortion had shifted dramatically. One poll showed that 51 percent of Americans – an absolute majority – call themselves pro-life, and that the pro-choice designation trails by nine percentage points. Another poll showed that, even in the highly important 18-to-29-year-old demographic, pro-lifers outnumber supporters of choice. And when you drill down into the polling data, you discover that most Americans are against most of the abortions that occur each year and believe they should be made illegal.

This change has come about through advances in science and medicine that allow new mothers actually to see their developing infants. It also happened because pro-lifers have been wise and patient, and have done their work in large part quietly, head to head and heart to heart. The pro-life movement has been successful against all odds in not only keeping the issue alive despite massive opposition in the media and popular culture, but also in changing hearts and minds.

Will the murder of George Tiller halt this steady and solid progress? It’s too soon to tell. But we should brace for the possibility that a violent act committed by a mentally disturbed man (as his family describes him) will change the playing field profoundly on the most important human rights issue of our day. Abortion activists are already trying to use this crime to discredit and to thwart our efforts. Will the Obama Administration exploit this – another crisis – to try to silence our voices and further its pro-abortion agenda cloaked in “common ground” rhetoric?

Those of us in the pro-life movement know this: We are not going anywhere. We will continue to be peaceful and persistent. Even now, young people on college campuses are coming up with creative ways to advance our cause. Even now, elderly men and women are standing outside of abortion clinics praying for young women to turn around. Even now, young women are turning around, and their lives and the lives of their babies are being saved. Our work will go on.

WRITTEN by Cathy & Austin Ruse at The Catholic Thing webiste on June 12th, 2009