On Saturday, July 24, I gave a sidewalk counseling seminar at St. Ansgar’s Parish in Hanover Park, Illinois. Greg and Sandy Kascewicz took the initiative to organize and publicize the seminar attended by over three dozen potential sidewalk counselors.
Many people who regularly go out to pray at an abortion clinic are reticent to approach an abortion-bound woman to offer her a chance to choose life.
Admittedly it seems difficult to intrude in someone else’s personal life an decisions. But the pro-lifer who steps out in faith to come to an abortion clinic must realize that he or she has something very valuable to offer a woman who thinks abortion is her only choice. We offer hope, life and real choice.
Our opponents long ago snatched the word “choice” as their own because they cannot face the fact that they promote the death of a baby. In fact, at St. Ansgar’s, the new pastor, Fr. Clement Oyafemi, specifically highlighted the fact that if you are not pro-life you are pro-death. There is no “pro-choice,” he said. You are either for life or against it.
We, of course, are for life. And we know from conversations with many women who have had abortions, that most women would choose life if only they could see a way that that is possible.
Sidewalk counselors and their colleagues at the crisis pregnancy centers bring the choice for life to women who think it is not possible to welcome new life in the midst of their overwhelming problems. We help them understand the gift of life and the privilege of bringing new life into the world.
The purveyors of abortion paint the unborn baby as nothing but trouble, while the sidewalk counselor empowers a woman to acknowledge the wonder of motherhood.
Those of us who believe in the sanctity of life should never hesitate to bring this good news to those who are afraid to celebrate God’s gift of new life. The women and men who take us up on our offer of the chance to choose life will be forever grateful, and the babies whose lives are saved will make their own mark on the world.
Generations are affected in the choice for life or death. Never be afraid to offer the choice for life.
