Calling All Pro-Life Youth!
By REY FLORES
A call to action is being put out by none other than yours truly. I’m calling all the Catholic youth in America who receive this message from their parents, their family, their friends, their priests, their teachers, or anyone else reading this article.
This past January, we saw the largest ever March for Life in Washington, D.C., with an estimated 650,000 participants. While the crowd consisted of all ages, without a doubt, in my estimation, I would say that over 75 percent of attendees were under 30 years of age, all the way down to newborns.
This truly is the pro-life generation and the momentum is building.
We need you now more than ever! Hang in there and don’t ever give up; we’ve got your back and don’t you forget it!
After decades of constant moral assaults by the abortion and contraception industry, newer generations of young people got wise. For those of us over 40 years of age, we sure took a beating.
Many people in my age bracket of 35 to 50 years of age have used contraception, gotten sick from its poisons, and, sadly, many of us are also post-abortive. We were lied to and deceived in so many ways, from the free condom bowls in the high school counselor’s office, to the indoctrination into a culture saturated in sexual immorality. Many of us didn’t stand a chance against that culture.
What are the results of all of this? Many dead babies, many broken hearts and broken lives, addictions, depression, and even suicides. We took the brunt of it from the culture of death.
But many of us made it through, thanks to the grace of God, and we are now activists and advocates for the preborn. While some of us did take the hard way to get to where we are now, some of the most effective leaders in the pro-life movement have been fighting to defend life for a long time already.
I know that a handful of my peers like Operation Rescue’s Troy Newman, Stand True’s Bryan Kemper, and the always terrific Rebecca Kiessling with Save the 1 are in this battle to win. These are people who eat and sleep pro-life. They are constantly hitting the road, working with others, teaching, going to court, praying outside the abortion mills, doing whatever it takes within the confines of the law, to end abortion.
What are you doing to end the culture of death? Are you participating at your local prayer vigils outside the abortion mills? Are you a member of a pro-life club or in the process of starting one?
These are all questions I ask because if you aren’t doing anything, then it’s time to stand up and take your place in this battle. We are truly fighting a life and death battle here. If we aren’t fighting the culture of death, then how many babies are we allowing to be aborted today?
Don’t think that just because half a million of your peers marched in Washington, D.C., this past January that we don’t need you. Do you realize that we abort over 3,000 babies in our nation every day? Let that number sink in, because unless you put some skin in the game, that number isn’t going to get any better.
This is where my call to action for Catholic youth comes in.
If you aren’t doing some kind of activity already, and even if you are, I invite you to join me and American Life League to help promote National Pro-Life T-Shirt Week, which takes place April 28 to May 4, 2015.
While the actual event week isn’t for a few weeks, the promotion campaign is already going strong. I need you to go to www.NPLTW.com and visit our site to see the many ways you can help organize young people in your immediate area to become Life Defenders.
If you are able to organize a group to either wear the official National Pro-Life T-shirt Week T-shirts, or whatever pro-life T-shirts you may already have or can make, enter the National Pro-Life T-shirt Week contest. As we say, wear your pro-life shirt, take a picture, and win a prize.
Prize or no prize, the real prize is that by wearing a pro-life T-shirt at school, at church, at the mall, or even at the grocery store, you are teaching others without saying a word. If someone asks you about what your shirt means, you’ve already got him or her engaged in a conversation where you can explain why you know that abortion is wrong.
What could be easier than wearing a pro-life T-shirt? Chances are that you will make people think, even if you don’t interact with them at all. If they do talk to you, that means that God is trusting you to take a stand for the preborn and possibly change the hearts and minds of the people you are dealing with. If they are already pro-life, then you’ve just made some new friends.
Organize a group to wear pro-life shirts, whether they’re our T-shirts or not, and plan to wear them all week starting April 28. If you organize a group of ten or more to wear the official NPLTW T-shirts, American Life League will discount each shirt to $10 a shirt. That’s about 33 percent off the regular price! There are also free promotional materials.
Abortion is a very real and ugly reality in our society, but by taking the first step in becoming an active participant in this battle, you will then be part of the solution.
Again, visit www.NPLTW.com online, “like” NPLTW on Facebook, share the information with others on social media, and get your group organized today.
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(Rey Flores is a Catholic writer and speaker. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
