Way to change the culture
You’ve got to be well informed and have answers for the inevitable accusations against religiously or morally informed people even participating. And for the standard claims that certain laws are ‘settled’ and founded on rights that…actually aren’t in the Constitution.
Carl Olson has a good post at Ignatius Insight.
This highlights something I do not understand about the “let’s not waste time and money and good will on the political/legal battle against abortion” argument: the fact that the many advances made by the pro-abortion movement over the past few decades have come primarily and most overtly through political and legal means.
Which is why the pro-abortion people in power now are giving that put-down advice. Archbishop Chaput is out there giving the uplifiting guidance he’s so good at, urging a real pluralism of voices in public debate.
In sum, as Archbishop Chaput notes, fighting abortion via political/legal means and other means (religious, cultural, etc.) is part of a cohesive appreciation of man as both an individual and a social creature. The term “politics” is sometimes wrapped in either mythical or muddled clothing, as if it is too esoteric and important for most to engage in, or altogether too common for anyone to be concerned with.
The Civil Rights movement ended segregation by social activism at the grassroots with religiously informed leadership. The pro-life movement today (with many of the same activists and their descendents) is fighting on every level they can to end discrimination against a whole class of human beings through abortion and euthanasia. That’s the new Civil Rights activism.
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It is fine to fight on all fronts and on every level. But the pro-life movement must take into consideration that there is a progression to the battle. Some fights must be waged first before other fights can commence. On D-Day in World War II, could there have been a landing had not Naval guns softened the turf? In Gettysburg could there have been a frontal assault had not Confederate canons prepared the battle? Even battles that fail progress in an orderly coordinated way. For the pro-life movement the preparation for a political assault must first be the softening of hearts. If one chooses to fight a political battle which hearts do not first welcome, a political victory will be a shallow one at best. Dr. Martin Luther King remembered 1 Corinthians 13. The pro-life movement would do well to considered it as well.