The Struggle

Last week, while writing on the recent signature victory in Colorado, I made a statement that I haven’t been able to shake from my mind. 

Even if the amendment is defeated, we will not stop moving forward until we see Colorado, and America, acknowledging the humanity, the “personhood”, of every human life, whether from the genesis of conception or the very last moments of their natural life.

We will not stop…

What are the implications of those simple, easily spoken, four words? 

It’s far too easy to say the words. But where does the rubber actually meet the road? I’m thinking of Everett Stadig, a soft-spoken, gentle,  69 year-old man that was pushed off his bicycle because he was collecting signatures for the Personhood Amendment in Colorado. Mr. Everett sustained a broken hip after the fall. He remembers the attacker yelling things about being pro-choice and that Mr. Everett had no right to be in front of a supermarket collecting pro-life signatures. At this point in time, I believe the man who attacked Mr. Everett is still unnamed. 

We will not stop… 

Think about it again. Are we willing to be yelled at and mocked? Are we willing to be ridiculed by strangers and possibly by those we know well? Not long ago, I told an acquaintance I was writing for Personhood USA. Her response: “Oh…They’re really crazy.” That’s as much “persecution” I have endured for my support of the Pro-Life Movement. I can handle that. But what happens when people start telling me that I am crazy? What happens when you or I are pushed to the ground for taking Personhood Petition signatures? What about when rocks get thrown through our windows? What if it escalates to the point where people are regularly hospitalized because we’re still holding our old-fashioned, superstitious, religious beliefs? 

I’m not trying to instill fear into our readers, nor am I trying to say that definitely, all out persecution is waiting for us around the corner. It may very well NOT be, but some, hopefully only a few, acts of violence will likely be perpetrated against us. I’d like to hope that American society, over-all, is bigger than that. 

Yet, when extreme statements like “We will not stop” are made, we have to sit back and truly consider what we’re saying. This is not a time when we can make ambitious statements, thinking that uttering them is tantamount to doing them. 

Let’s think long and hard about the movement we are all involved in. Is the value of the unborn high enough for us to submit to heckling? Is the glory of Jesus Christ shown in defending the helpless enough for us to lay our lives down? Let’s not only think about these things, let’s pray and ask God for the grace to stand steady for the cause that he has asked us to take up along with him. It is, after all, only by his grace that we stand. 

Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:8, 9 ESV