Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Priorities

Today, upwards of 200,000 people marched on Washington, D.C. to protest what is very likely the greatest single evil ever on American soil on the 35th anniversary of its legalization. Abortion is without serious contest as THE issue to face my generation. Somehow, this is Yahoo News's front page.


If you scroll down, there's nothing anywhere on the front page about the march. Likewise on CNN, NBC News, and even Fox News, that supposed stronghold of conservative coverage. MSNBC mentions it under Health -- with pictures of pro-abortion counter-demonstrators. Instead we have stories about the Oscar nominations, Britney's refusal to undergo a psych evaluation, and Heath Ledger's sudden death (which is, of course, really tragic). There is not a mention of the hundreds of thousand who have marched over the weekend and today in defense of life, especially the life of the unborn.

This, frankly, simply, makes me angry. As Michele Malkin points out, if those marchers had been protesting the war or immigration policy, they'd probably be getting more prominent coverage. This, as one of my students put it today, is "seriously wrong and messed up". I can't help but wonder if it is the strong presence of silly simple minded Christians praying all over the place that makes the pro-live movement, and the March for Life, unworthy of the news.

I said in my post of this morning that my kids would hate me for making them sit still long enough to say ten Hail Marys. I would like to publicly retract that statement and slap myself 'cross the mouth. I was so wrong. All I had to do was mention the March for Life and what it's about, and my kids took over. They wanted to know why abortion is legal and why people get them because they're "so bad". I tried to explain that women who get abortions are rarely, if ever, fully aware of what they're doing or of the implications of that choice, and most of them seemed to kind of get it, even if their juvenile little brains can't quite wrap around that gray area yet. Nearly all of them expressed some degree of bewilderment and/or horror at the concept, all because of what they already knew, nothing I told them. "They cut the baby up," one girl informed me, "That's seriously wrong and messed up." Her classmate added, "On many, many levels." When I said I wanted them to pray with me, a lot of them clapped their hands together and waited intently for my cue. One boy jumped right out of his seat, ready to pray like we do at morning assembly. I was, to understate it, moved.

There was one girl who looked at me like I was a little crazy and said, "But Miss, that's just your opinion." This is one of the joys of working in a Catholic school. I said, "Some things just are right, or just are wrong, and there's no opinion about it. Abortion is one of those things." I explained a little more, but she didn't look like she bought it. This student of mine appears to have already been sold on the "What's right for me is what's right, period" relativism mentality that is such a big part of the reason we have this scourge in our society in the first place. The convenience, but flimsiness, of the counter arguments and the vehemence of the pro-choice camp is what tells me real evil is at work here.

The 200,000 plus people who marched in Washington (and Atlanta, San Francisco, Dallas, and others) and the eighty plus children who today readily and gladly prayed with me is what tells me not only are we in the right, but by God's grace we will eventually triumph over it.

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