The Shy Pro-lifer: Little Effort, Big Impact

The Shy Pro-lifer: Little Effort, Big Impact

While you are considering your New Year’s resolutions, allow me to suggest that you commit to being more active as a pro-life advocate in ways that even the shyest wallflower will find easy, but impactful.

Many people think that life issues are too political, volatile, or enormous for the average person to tackle. So they say “What can I do? I don’t want to demonstrate in marches or debate anyone. I don’t have time to get involved.”

Among retired people, the attitude is often, “I’m retired. I’m done with all that. I’ve done my share.” Particularly when it comes to abortion, they think they are no longer affected, which isn’t true, of course, because their grandchildren are in the thick of it.

Being retired doesn’t mean you’re dead. You are still part of society and still useful. There’s still lots you can do, and being older doesn’t excuse you from your moral responsibility to help others, including the poor, those on death row, and all others whose lives are threatened by violence, notably the elderly. Seniors shouldn’t forget that euthanasia is one of the life issues, and with the sharp rise of assisted suicide, it is an issue that could definitely affect them if they are seen as a “burden” who needs to pass on.

What You Can Do

Fortunately, there’s are many behind-the-scenes actions anyone can take that are not necessarily time-consuming, public, costly, or difficult. Recently, someone on Facebook asked friends to make suggestions for easy ways to help. Below is a condensed report on the answers. See if you can find a volunteer job in your comfort zone among these suggestions.

Let’s start with stuff you can do online. First, find a pro-life organization or Pregnancy Resource Center (PRC) on a social media outlet such as Facebook or YouTube and follow the posts.

• Simply “Like” or comment on their posts to help with the algorithm, which means that the search engines will give those posts higher visibility.
• Buy items from the Wish List of a pregnant mom in need. It’s fun to shop and you can pick something in your price range.

A more active online role could include

• Start a “give & take” group on Facebook where people offer unwanted items for free, thus fostering local mutual aid for mothers needing baby supplies and other goods.
• Get a list of resources (local or national) for women with unplanned pregnancies and post it on social media.
• Create your own list of resources and use social media to get the word out. You could even have a webpage for your area and beyond.
• Gather online pro-life news and share. Teaching others in your circle of influence, no matter how small, can have a big impact on combating disinformation and helping others to be more comfortable with being openly pro-life.
• Know the facts yourself and share them with civility in response to misinformation. (Use the discussion methods taught by Secular Pro-life, secularprolife.org).
• Help make people aware of local PRCs — they put their money into helping women instead of advertising, but how are women to find them if they don’t advertise? Do the advertising for them on social media.
• Do online fundraising for PRCs or pro-life organizations or for a specific mom in need.

There are simple tasks you can perform that can help a pregnant woman in very meaningful ways:

• Adopt a supportive attitude towards women with an unplanned pregnancy. Let them know there are people in their corner (and support with funds, if possible).
• Be a supportive angel to a woman or couple who need encouragement. Love on them. Invite them to supper. You don’t necessarily have to help them financially; emotional support is often what they need most.
• Drive a pregnant mom to medical appointments, the grocery store, etc. Often, lack of reliable transportation is a big hurdle in choosing life.
• Volunteer to babysit.
• Make a meal for a struggling mom, especially if she has other children, or for new parents.
• Offer to do chores or do yard work like planting flowers. People in crisis feel overwhelmed and need a helper and some beauty in their lives.
• Sew/crochet/knit/quilt a baby blanket or baby clothes.
• Offer free car repairs or maintenance.
• Get reading material for the parents from parenting education pamphlets to romance novels — whatever the need or whatever will lift their spirits.
• Help parents build a resume or find a job.
• Teach parents struggling with money issues to make a budget and a financial plan.
• Show parents how to make nutritious meals at a low cost.

If you feel you are ready for a more proactive role, consider the following:

• Develop a relationship with a journalist. Send news tips about pro-life stories. Be a pro-life resource for their reporting.
• Write pro-life op-eds or letters to the editor. Make sure inaccurate reporting is challenged.
• Work for a pro-life candidate.
• Vote for a pro-life candidate.
• Coordinate a mobile ultrasound clinic visit to your area.
• Join or start a Walking with Moms in Need group at your Catholic church to help connect pregnant women with resources.
• Serve on your parish Respect Life committee or volunteer for its activities.
• Volunteer for a pro-life hotline. The following list includes the most prominent, but various churches and PRCs have hotlines as well. You don’t necessarily have to be a licensed counselor to volunteer; they can train you to take the initial call and then make a referral or connect to the professional. Check out: Option Line, PROLIFE Across America, Abortion Pill Reversal, Care Net, LoveLine, American Pregnancy Association, or Let Them Live.

  

One critically important job for a pro-life person is to raise your children to be pro-life. This legacy will give your children a solid foundation upon which they can rely when facing their own challenges, and it will ensure that a pro-life voice carries on into the next generation. As one Facebook commenter wrote: “Their voices reach more than mine. Especially my school-age daughter. She shares morals on a daily basis with her classmates and peers through her after-school activities.”

Let people know that you are pro-life. Even if you can’t do any of the activities listed above, you can have a huge impact if you let it be known that you are pro-life. Simply saying “I’m pro-life” in a discussion with different-minded people starts a conversation and lets others know that they cannot assume that everyone is pro-choice.

Speak up! It doesn’t have to be confrontational — in fact, you don’t want it to be confrontational. Just state your position and establish that normal people, even their friends, can be pro-life. If you do that, then others will find the courage to speak up as well. (See: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/musingsfromthepew/2023/11/three-reasons-to-identify-as-pro-life/); https://www.patheos.com/blogs/musingsfromthepew/2021/10/tolerance-means-respecting-differences-not-hiding-them/

In these conversations, find common ground (which is often support for the work of PRCs because truly pro-choice people want support also for women who choose to carry to term). Describe the resources that are available to women. Help them to understand that a baby does not mean the end to a woman’s education or career.

Please find something on this list that appeals to you and act upon it. With the death culture so threatening to all of us, we need all hands on deck.