Our Selves and Our Choices

Violating everything we know about attention spans online, I'm hoping you'll check this out. As Hilary at Orwell's Picnic suggests, such thought exercises are a worthy beginning but unlikely to instill a long-term change of heart. Watching the video, I was struck by the average person's hunger for honest deliberation. This conversation offered basic good vs. evil quandaries. One gets the sense these topics simply haven't been broached in the recent memory of those interviewed. Some of them look like undergrad college students, and it appears to take place in Southern California, but even controlling for those deficiencies (kidding!), they seem to really be stretching their abilities. Did you notice towards the end, how many of them were visibly relieved to have a logical approach by which to call themselves pro-life?

"Those who have hope live differently." PBXVI

Before we rally on the Internet in defense of life, may we stop to first pray and sacrifice for the cause.

If a stranger observed us going about our comforts, how would they recognize our concern for the nearly 4,000 little people whose lives will end today? My suggestions are simple, active and they start with concern for mothers. At one end is the call to prayerfully consider adding to our own families through adoption. There are simpler ways to encourage mothers at risk, too: shop at thrift stores for baby clothing and supplies. Answer Craigslist ads in your area posted by pregnant women looking for free stuff. Bring a box of diapers to a shelter that assists families. Pray for their fears to be removed.
Just as it's wrong to demonize (all) pro-abortion people as being predatory eugenicists, it's wrong to oversimplify pro-life America as callous oppressors. As a nation, we are an uncatechized people. My own circle of friends and family is peppered with many good women who have had abortions. So is yours. It doesn't grant me special knowledge of their suffering, but I hope it has made me more compassionate. The factions of those who would declare any baby 'unwanted' and those who reject that, from the very moment of conception, don't have many places to run parallel. May civilized and sane conversation be our start. I'm not minimizing the efforts that will be undertaken by many smart and dedicated people to commemorate the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. But this is too grave, and perhaps I am too naturally flippant --- so personally, I have to pass on the invitation.
We who have travelled from buzzwords to truth owe this change to specific moments in time, like more of an incremental catharsis. "That time someone got snarky on Twitter" ain't on the list, I guarantee it.  Radical, ongoing conversion to Christ --- to say nothing of bio-ethics --- happens one soul at a time.