{"id":6858,"date":"2011-10-06T18:56:50","date_gmt":"2011-10-06T22:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liveaction.org\/blog\/?p=6858"},"modified":"2013-04-01T19:32:11","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T23:32:11","slug":"get-a-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/get-a-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Get a life"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

On October 1-2, 2011 Pro-Life Texas launched the first-ever Face the Truth Tour in Dallas, Texas, the first of what will be many different Tours taking place all over Texas in the months and years ahead.\u00a0 Using large graphic signs of abortions, about a dozen activists lined the intersections at six Dallas locations and exposed the truth about what abortion is and what it does to a child.<\/p>\n

\"\"As I was planning for this event last month a friend asked me why were we doing this, and why was it necessary to start another pro-life group when there are already so many?<\/p>\n

There are two reasons why we are doing this.\u00a0 The first is to actuate a key element of social reform, as annunciated by Martin Luther King Jr., which is the need to dramatize a shameful condition in a way that raises tension so that society is forced to deal with injustice.\u00a0 Civil Rights activists carried this out in a non-violent, peaceful witness and we follow these principles.\u00a0 We don\u2019t encourage getting arrested or violating the law but instead encourage peaceful, prayerful and penitential activism and in this sense, we are in union with our brothers and sisters in other pro-life public witness organizations.<\/p>\n

The concept of raising the tension, though, can be viewed in different ways and how it should be done is a strategic decision that different pro-life groups have different opinions on.\u00a0 What cannot be said, though, is that it should not be done at all<\/em> or that it is not effective<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"The second reason we are doing this is that the abortion rate in Texas has remained stagnant over the last decade<\/a>.\u00a0 It goes up and down but never makes any progress in any one direction despite recent legislative victories and huge advances in awareness and opinion polls that show more people pro-life than ever.\u00a0 \u00a0How do we change this?<\/p>\n

There may not be one answer, but we started Pro-Life Texas with the two-fold mission of bold public witness and grassroots trainings as a compliment to, and not a replacement of, efforts already underway in promoting the Gospel of Life.\u00a0 One element of our efforts will be the Face the Truth Tours<\/strong>, which have as their core mission the mass evangelization of a culture that is immersed in the Culture of Death and is in need of serious reform. \u00a0When people are exposed to the injustice of abortion and understand its deadly nature, they are more compelled to get involved.\u00a0 We have<\/span> to show these images.\u00a0 It\u2019s the best way for people to learn it\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n

We do get a lot of complaints, but the complaints that we don\u2019t<\/em> get are that the pictures are fake.\u00a0 The complaints we don\u2019t<\/em> get is that we are opposed to your Tour because we love abortion and think it should be legal.\u00a0\u00a0 Almost all of the complaints we receive express concern over young children viewing the images. \u00a0\u00a0Those making this complaint, whether they are pro-life or pro-choice, inadvertently confirm the authenticity and effectiveness of the images and remove the debate from whether or not the images are real or effective and put it into the realm of why we need to do this in the first place, which is where the debate should lie.<\/p>\n

\"\"After all, if there is so much concern about the remote possibility of a young child being stressed over seeing these images, then where is the cultural concern over how these images came to exist in the first place?\u00a0 Let\u2019s get our priorities straight, because our long experience in this work confirms (and was confirmed repeatedly on our Dallas Tour) that children almost never have a problem with the images, but that the parents are the ones that get upset<\/em>.\u00a0 We talked to several irate parents on the tour who demanded we not show these signs while their children stood their meekly, seemingly embarrassed that their parent was making such a spectacle of themselves.\u00a0 Too many times, parents use their children as an excuse to act like idiots.\u00a0 Some parents need to grow up.<\/p>\n

Sometimes children understand the nature of injustice a lot better than adults do, as one prominent pro-life mother recently wrote about<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While on the Tour, the Director of a local Catholic Pregnancy Help Center stops by and thanks us for witnessing and encourages us to keep it up.\u00a0 She tells us that in her work at the pregnancy center, she has seen many times how women change their minds when they are exposed to the truth; the truth about the child in her womb, the child\u2019s development and what happens if she decides to have an abortion.<\/p>\n

Some people drive by holding their hands over their eyes (not recommended while driving!) and some give us what a friend jokingly referred to as \u201chalf a peace sign.\u201d\u00a0 One well-dressed woman, driving a very nice car with a rosary hanging from her review mirror rolls down her window and says the vilest thing to me.\u00a0 I just smile and wave.<\/p>\n

A young woman on the Tour with us is pregnant with her first child and is moved by the display, noting how significant it is that women see the truth since she herself is carrying a child.\u00a0 \u201cIt makes it all different now<\/em>,\u201d she tells me, \u201cI can\u2019t understand how any woman would do this to her child.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

We hold large images of a 21 week old baby killed through abortion near a busy intersection located next to an abortion mill that performs 24 week abortions.\u00a0 A man pulls up and questions why we are in this \u201cnice, residential area\u201d and we point out that children are being killed, their limbs ripped apart and their skulls crushed not 300 feet from where we are standing.\u00a0 The man is surprised to hear this, he had no idea.<\/p>\n

A reporter asks me what I think about a federal court\u2019s recent decision to halt implementation of Texas\u2019 sonogram bill and I tell her that the reason for creating the sonogram bill is the same reason we are on the streets today: women deserve to know all the information about what an abortion is and what it does to their child.<\/p>\n

There are misunderstandings.\u00a0 After an irate bystander kicks one of our signs and punches one of our Tour participants the police come out and, instead of investigating an assault, they demand to know why we are here.\u00a0 As I attempt to explain to the rookie officers about first amendment rights, they arrogantly insist I could be arrested, charged with disorderly conduct, thrown in jail and my signs seized as evidence, merely for standing on a public sidewalk.<\/p>\n

We ask to speak to the supervisor who arrives shortly after, realizes his men have overreacted, sends the police paddy wagon away and crumples up a citation already written.\u00a0 He does not apologize, mind you, but rebukes us for engaging in this activity in the first place and laments that all of this happened.\u00a0 As of this writing, there has still not been an investigation made into the assault.<\/p>\n

Another reason for doing this kind of activity involves a spiritual mindset, one that invokes the most basic of Christian principles: the need to sacrifice yourself completely so that justice will be victorious<\/span>. \u00a0These bold public witnesses allow for a person, in a way not found elsewhere, to carry his cross, to endure persecution and to allowing their suffering to purify our culture.\u00a0 I would ask any person involved in pro-life work today, are you really giving of yourselves completely to this work, or are you in it for the glory?\u00a0 Blessed Pope John Paul II once called it the \u201cmost important work on earth.\u201d \u00a0Is your life a testimony to that statement? \u00a0Are you unafraid of those who are in positions of power and authority, from those who could send you to jail, those who could take your job from you and those who would castigate you and call you names?\u00a0 After our closing prayer on the Tour on Sunday afternoon, I told everyone that we would be doing it again soon and that they should bring a friend, to which someone responded, \u201cif you got any left!\u201d\u00a0 He understood.<\/p>\n

At one point on the tour a man drives by in his car and screams at us, \u201cGet a life<\/em>!\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, that\u2019s the whole point.\u00a0 May we get many lives in the days ahead.<\/p>\n

\"\"Andrew Smith is the State Director of Pro-Life Texas<\/a><\/strong>, a state-wide organization providing grass-roots training for bold, public witness on the streets and in the Legislature. \u00a0A former police officer who served in the United States Marine Corps, he has more than a decade of experience in pro-life activism.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On October 1-2, 2011 Pro-Life Texas launched the first-ever Face the Truth Tour in Dallas, Texas, the first of what will be many different Tours taking place all over Texas in the months and years ahead.\u00a0 Using large graphic signs of abortions, about a dozen activists lined the intersections at six Dallas locations and exposed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nGet a life - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/get-a-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Get a life - Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On October 1-2, 2011 Pro-Life Texas launched the first-ever Face the Truth Tour in Dallas, Texas, the first of what will be many different Tours taking place all over Texas in the months and years ahead.\u00a0 Using large graphic signs of abortions, about a dozen activists lined the intersections at six Dallas locations and exposed […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/get-a-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-06T22:56:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-04-01T23:32:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/liveaction.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/graphic-warning.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andrew Smith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Andrew Smith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/get-a-life\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/get-a-life\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Andrew Smith\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/98d4c460384ab9dd879350d2c59d4ffa\"},\"headline\":\"Get a life\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-10-06T22:56:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-04-01T23:32:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/get-a-life\/\"},\"wordCount\":1464,\"commentCount\":7,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Issues\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/get-a-life\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/get-a-life\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/get-a-life\/\",\"name\":\"Get a life - 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