{"id":194999,"date":"2019-02-16T13:06:03","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T19:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=194999"},"modified":"2019-02-13T01:11:14","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T07:11:14","slug":"learned-encounter-pro-abortion-advocate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/learned-encounter-pro-abortion-advocate\/","title":{"rendered":"What I learned from my encounter with a pro-abortion advocate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The message of the pro-life cause is one of compassion, and our goal is to offer support to women and their babies. I had an opportunity to speak as a pro-life individual through a social change class I had to take as a graduation requirement at school. For our final, we were told we had to pitch a social innovation plan to the class, and I decided to advocate for the creation of a pro-life charity. My intention was to expand upon resources needed to make choosing life possible for a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy. My professor nominated me for an opportunity to earn funding for my idea, which required that I create a display featuring the name of my proposed charity: Loved by Christ. It featured a picture of a woman embracing her baby. Two other pictures on the display showed an ultrasound of a baby at 12 weeks and one showing Jesus surrounded by little children.<\/span><\/p>\n

I anticipated objections to my idea, as the topic was controversial, but one young woman in particular became very upset upon seeing my display.\u00a0She claimed my display was a violation of separation of church and state, and when I told her I was not prohibited from expressing my religious views in public, she began to chant<\/em> the phrase at me. And things just got worse from there….<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Planned Parenthood\u2019s new annual report: More abortions, less healthcare<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I continued to try and pursue an actual dialogue with her, as I hoped to debunk the idea that the\u00a0<\/span>pro-life<\/span><\/a> side is merely “pro-birth,” by telling her of all the assistance that pro-lifers offer to women.\u00a0<\/span>As I did, she shook her head at the services I listed, and incorrectly insisted that Planned Parenthood already did all of those things for women. While it is true that Planned Parenthood provides other services besides abortion,\u00a0Planned Parenthood<\/a>\u00a0is the nation’s largest abortion provider — committing more than 332,000 abortions every year<\/a> — and it doesn\u2019t fully commit to prenatal care<\/a>. There are better places for women to seek help<\/a>, like community health centers and pregnancy resource centers.<\/p>\n

However, when I attempted to tell her about Care Net \u2013 one of the most influential pregnancy center organizations in the country \u2013 <\/span> she confused Care Net with Care.com<\/em>, and scoffed that she didn\u2019t see how a ‘babysitting website’ could do a lot to help women. This further confirmed her<\/span>\u00a0unfamiliarity with other avenues of support for pregnant women. But given the way the pro-abortion movement dismisses\u00a0<\/span>the <\/span>pro-life<\/span><\/a> community as unfeeling towards women, I could hardly blame her for her ignorance. By crafting an image of the pro-life movement as people who will only protest abortion \u2013 not take action to prevent it \u2013 the pro-abortion movement ignores or dismisses (even villainizes<\/a>) the efforts of pro-lifers who truly help women.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I further explained what Care Net<\/a>\u00a0actually is, she oddly attempted to dismiss it as a religious version of Planned Parenthood, with less to offer — this, despite being told that<\/span>\u00a0Care Net had <\/span>saved<\/span><\/a> 70,043 preborn human beings in 2015, and over the course of eight years, Care Net has helped over 500,000 people. In contrast, <\/span>Planned Parenthood<\/span><\/a> only helped with 2,024 adoption referrals, and aborted<\/em> 323,999 babies in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

She insisted that women wouldn\u2019t look to a charity like mine for help if it didn\u2019t offer abortions,<\/a> which is, of course, untrue<\/a>. S<\/span>he rejected the idea of the pro-life community dedicating itself to protecting life by offering women supportive care, and continued to defend Planned Parenthood, insisting repeatedly that abortion was only 3% of its services.\u00a0I explained that\u00a0this<\/a> was not true<\/a>. She became angry, declaring she would argue with me till she died that it was only 3%. (Read more here about the debunked 3% claim<\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n