When I am doing pro-life activism, I frequently think of the quote by Maya Angelou, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” When my colleagues and myself have conversations with people each day about abortion, there are two things we know will stay with each person that we speak with: how we made them feel as we talked with them, and the images of the crushed bodies of pre-born children that we show.
August 23, 2019
When you do CCBR’s internship, you have the opportunity to have unforgettable conversations with people on the streets. I wish I could say that all of the conversations I’ve had saw peoples’ opinion on the issue of abortion at least shift towards the pro-life position. Even though I’ve had a lot of those conversations, that’s not always the case.
July 18, 2019
“They’re hypocrites. They only care about fetuses.”
“How many children have you adopted?”
“All they want to do is force women to give birth.”
July 9, 2019
“What if an eleven-year-old gets raped by her dad? Would you really say that this child shouldn’t have an abortion?” The young woman asking the question had a look of mixed triumph and curiosity. There really wasn’t anything I could say to that, was there? In asking this question, she had proven that abortion is necessary, hadn’t she?
June 14, 2019
A few weeks ago, while doing activism, I spoke with Travis. When I asked him what he thought about abortion, he told me that he was a relativist and that “everyone must live by their own truth.” Several questions later he still stuck to the same tune.
I've found that it's quite simple to ask questions that disprove someone's belief in relativism, often starting with: "Is it okay for someone to just punch somebody else?" or "Can I take your backpack and call it my own?" These questions can often reveal that people do believe in limits to ‘one's own truth.’
May 28, 2019
While the abortion debate may seem complex, it actually centres on one question: who are the pre-born? Are they human beings with human rights, like the born? Or are they mere “clumps of cells”, with no more moral value than a tumour?
January 24, 2019
“Do you want me to read to you?” my oldest asked his almost 2-year old sister recently. She nodded eagerly. “How about this one?” He was holding up one of her current favourites, a sturdy Usborne book entitled Where Do Babies Come From? My heart warmed as they snuggled on the couch together. “A tiny seed from the father, called a sperm, joins with a tiny egg from the mother,” he read, while she lifted the flap to see a small human growing in-utero.
January 22, 2019
“So, what are you doing this summer?”
It was a common question – one I got asked by distant relatives, friends, and acquaintances dozens of times over my four months away from school.
“I’m working for CCBR,” I explained. “I’m in Mississauga for the summer, doing their four-month internship.”
“CCBR?” the lady questioned.
“The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform,” I clarified. “We do pro-life activism all over the GTA, talking to people and using pictures of abortion victims to show how terrible abortion is.”
January 7, 2019
Everything was happening in slow motion. Panic welled up inside of me when I realized that the chunk of dirt was heavy enough to drag my 2-year-old sister into the water-filled ditch with it. I started running to the house, but 5-year-old logic said I wouldn’t be able to get my mom there in time. I ran back to the ditch, and saw her little form bobbing in the murky water, face down. I knew I had no choice but to grab that frilly pink dress as my new slip-on shoes sunk into the mud at the edge of the water. My friends watched in terror as I pulled with every ounce of strength I had.
January 1, 2019
2018 seems to have slipped past when nobody was looking, and it is hard to believe the year is gone already. So much was done and so much happened, but as one of my friends noted, the days are long but the years are short. At the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, we were privileged to see our efforts culminate in over four million views of abortion victim photography, tens of thousands of people trained in apologetics, and most importantly, lives saved.