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Voices Online Edition
Vol. XIX No. 1 Eastertide 2004
"Generation
One-Third Dead"
America's pro-life movement is the
quiet, determined, steadfast majority,
and we have the youth on our side
by Jill Stanek
Three nights ago I spoke to 1,100 St. Louis-area Catholic teens as they prepared to travel to Washington, DC, for the March for Life. Their youth leaders had organized a send-off rally and Mass just prior to their boarding the buses.
It was a sacred experience, particularly as I observed the kids from a balcony after the rally so wholeheartedly participate in the Mass led by St. Louis Bishop Joseph Naumann.
I can see why pro-aborts are nervous about American teens, particularly teens like these who cling so strongly to their Christian faith and accompanying belief in the sanctity of life.
In fact, a Gallup poll conducted in August 2003 indicated that 72 percent of American teens believe abortion is morally wrong. This and other polls -- even those conducted by pro-aborts -- show teens are tending to much more conservative positions on abortion than the aging Baby Boomer generation.
A section entitled "Declining Support of Abortion Rights" in a report ["Progress and Perils: New Agenda for Women"] last June by the pro-abortion Center for the Advancement of Women, headed by Faye Wattleton, said, "After 30 years, 'keeping abortion legal' is relatively low on the list of priorities for women".
That was an understatement. Of 12 options their pollsters offered, abortion came in number 11 as a "top priority".
In response, pro-aborts are aiming their talons at our kids, attempting to convert them from Christlike believers in chastity, parental involvement, and the sanctity of life into hedonistic followers of sexual abandon, rejection of parental authority, and the sanctity of abortion.
In fact, World magazine reported that NARAL spinmeisters are calling them Generation Pro-Choice.
"It's not just your mother's pro-choice movement", World quotes NARAL as counseling hoped-for recruits. "If you support access to birth control, sex education, and abortion, and you've never lived in a time when abortion was illegal ... then congratulations, you are Generation Pro-Choice. And we need your help getting other young people involved to protect ... a woman's right to choose -- or else quite frankly, we're gonna lose it".
"Gonna lose it"? Sorry, too late, in more ways than one.
I told the St. Louis kids a more fitting title for their age group would be Generation One-Third Dead, because that is how many of them have been slaughtered by abortion.
It makes sense that abortion survivors would reject the pro-baby killing message. I spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in St. Louis, a group of young people with their heads on straight regarding abortion. They not only mourn the loss of murdered friends and life partners they never met, they also see the destruction of abortion in their own bodies, hearts and minds -- and ours, probably to a greater extent.
By what I saw in Washington, at the Mass at the National Shrine the night before the March, and during the March itself, this is a generation that will not allow abortion to weave its deadly way through the course of their lives ... and deaths. There were clearly more younger persons than adults in attendance at both.
You won't see the incredible scope of the March on your televisions anywhere but C-SPAN. But I got a view of it yesterday I will never forget. Lincoln Christian College students have led the March since its inception. Because my son attends LCC, I got to walk with this group. After we marched the mile from the Washington Monument to the Supreme Court Building, we headed to a pro-life reception sponsored by Senator Peter Fitzgerald at the Russell Building. It adjoins Constitution Avenue, where the March took place. From the second story balcony, we watched the March continue for over an hour and a half. Its numbers -- particularly young people with high school and college banners -- were overwhelming.
A police officer who came to the balcony to warn us not to try anything funny said the March for Life is the largest annual event DC sees. You won't be told this by the mainstream media, but be encouraged. America's pro-life movement is the quiet, determined, steadfast majority, and we have the youth on our side.
In St. Louis, I asked the kids to help their pro-abortion friends understand. "Reason with them", I said. "Ask them if it makes more sense to believe those who tried to kill them or those who tried to save them".
But we cannot take the pro-life conservatism of our young people for granted. Recently, Pepsi sponsored an ad campaign calling them by its own label - Generation Next. But if Generation One-Third Dead becomes Generation Pro-Choice, there will be no Generation Next.
Jill Stanek became a leader in the Illinois conservative movement when she fought to stop "live birth abortion" after witnessing one as an RN at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn. Mrs. Stanek is pro-life coordinator for Concerned Women for America of Illinois and a public speaker around the country ([email protected]). In August 2002, President George W. Bush asked Mrs. Stanek to his signing of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. In January 2003, World magazine named her one of the 30 most prominent pro-life leaders of the past 30 years. In November 2003, the White House invited Jill Stanek to President Bush's signing of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. She continues to press for Illinois to become a state where unborn and newly born babies are safe.
This article, which appeared on IllinoisLeader.com January 22, 2004, is reprinted with permission.
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