I’ve been reading the signs on the news coverage of the recent San Francisco Walk for Life. A common one is “We’re the Pro-Life Generation.” The positive message and fact that they were doing something to spread the message really appealed to me, because I believe that all human life is sacred.
For the same reason, though, the signs make me uncomfortable. I’ve been wondering if those same people and same signs–maybe with some other action to back them up–will ever appear outside a prison at execution time. Or at a City Council meeting where upscale housing decisions are being made that will put more people out on the streets to become ill and endangered. Or at restaurant garbage cans where perfectly good food is thrown out, food that could feed hungry families at shelters and soup kitchens. Or at a legislative session that, instead of fixing the food stamp program lawmakers are cutting it, meaning more poor children experience malnutrition, hunger, and food insecurity. Or outside nursing homes where the sick and elderly are mistreated, abused, neglected, and in an environment that hastens their deaths.
I applaud the anti-abortion people for their demonstrations (except for the bad apples who feel it their duty to hound and humiliate rather than inform, encourage, and pray). Unfortunately, too many of them think that stopping abortions, therefore preserving pre-born human life, is all there is to being Pro-Life. Those people need to change their label to what it is–“Anti-Abortion,” which sounds negative but is more descriptive. All the rest, the true believers in life, should expand their conviction toward honoring and preserving human life–from womb to tomb.