Toronto March for LifeA couple weeks ago, I was in Regina with our summer internship team where I had a conversation with a young man named Bill.
When we began our conversation, Bill believed that abortion was necessary for women who live with financial strain. I agreed with him that it would be extremely difficult to be dealing with financial strain and then to realize that you’re pregnant and have a child to care for. We agreed that there aren’t easy solutions to this struggle, but if it would never be okay to kill an older child when the mom is in the same difficult circumstance, then it would also never be okay to kill a pre-born child, who is simply younger. The conversation continued and near the end, Bill agreed with me that abortion is always wrong.
I felt I needed to ask Bill one more question, “If one of your friends called you up and told you she needed a ride to the abortion clinic, what would you do?” Bill quickly responded, “I’d do what I could to change her mind!” I was very glad to hear that and we began to put together a plan as to how he could respond in that situation. We talked about the pregnancy centre in Regina which provides many resources to pregnant women and I suggested he ask his friend to show her what an abortion would do to her baby, to show her abortion victim photography. (Now that I’ve heard a talk at our Crash Course titled, “When she’s considering abortion?” I could also have recommended a few questions to ask her: “How did you come to this decision?”, “How far along are you?”, “Have you had an ultrasound yet?”, and “Do you feel prepared for the procedure?”) We discussed that it was important to give women all the information. Bill was extremely grateful for the entire discussion and said he was definitely going to be sharing all of this with his girlfriend that evening.
When we have conversations with people on the streets, we often have a very small window of time to talk with them about such an important issue. Yet if someone turns 180 degrees in their beliefs about abortion, I want to help them solidify their new position and help them determine how they’d respond when suddenly this issue we’ve just been discussing becomes very personal. When we’re faced with a situation that moves our heart and we know our friend is in crisis, we want to help them find a solution. Many people are tempted to just take their friend to an abortion clinic. Asking the question, “What would you do?” can help prepare them for the moment when their new-found pro-life values have to hit the road and they need to respond with love to their friend and her young child.
Bill will be pro-life when it matters and that’s a huge part of changing this culture of death to a culture of life.
