FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD
Posted on 04/08/2003 9:47:38 PM PDT by TLBSHOW
A New Generation Gap
Chuck Colson
As part of her coursework in persuasive speech, Afton Dahl had to make a presentation about a controversial issue. Dahl, a sixteen-year-old sophomore at Red Wing High School in Minnesota, chose abortion. "I think it would be better," she told her classmates, "to overturn Roe v. Wade."
Dahl was not just repeating what she heard in her pro-life, Christian home. In fact, her remarks came as a shock to her thoroughly pro-choice mother. But they are a hopeful sign that pro-life arguments have not fallen on deaf ears.
Dahl was not the only person in her class to make a pro-life presentation. As Dahl's teacher, Jillynne Raymond, told the New York Times, the "majority" of her students are pro-life.
This comes as a real surprise in Red Wing, which voted for Al Gore in 2000. One resident described herself as "shocked" at the pro-life sentiment among the town's kids and asked, "Where do these kids come from?"
The answer: They are just kids from Red Wing whose attitudes are consistent with national trends. Among young Americans, support for the pro-choice position has been dropping for the past decade. In 1993, 48 percent of eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds polled by the New York Times agreed that "abortion should be generally available to those who want it." Today, that number is down to 39 percent. A social scientist observed that young people today no longer see abortion as a "rights" issue, but as a "moral, ethical issue." That's good news.
And not surprisingly, abortion-rights advocates are trying to explain away these findings. Some argue that young women, never having "faced a situation where they couldn't get an abortion," take the right to abortion for granted. But they're not taking it for granted. They're explicitly rejecting that so-called "right."
An even more desperate pro-abortion explanation is that the shift is due to sex-ed programs stressing abstinence that "demonize abortion." In this conspiratorial account, children are being indoctrinated behind their busy parents' backs. As one pro-choice parent told the Times, "An anti-choice critter [jumped] out of my son's backpack and [ran] around my house." Really?
I suppose thinking that he has been brainwashed is easier than admitting that he thinks that you are wrong.
But that is what is happening. When Dahl told her classmates that "the baby's heartbeat starts at around twelve to eighteen days," she demonstrated that our arguments have taken hold. Likewise, when her classmate said that the abortion issue is "more about the baby's rights than the woman's rights," we can see that our efforts to shift the terms of the debate have borne fruit.
What's happening in Red Wing and across the country is a reminder to the pro-life side that being in this battle for the long haul pays off. Just because one generation of women regards Roe as sacrosanct does not mean that we cannot reach their children with rational, moral arguments.
What's happening in Red Wing should inspire Christians to take advantage of groups like Stand to Reason, an excellent apologetics ministry specifically equipping kids to understand and defend pro-life arguments—arguments that are creating a new generation gap, one in which being young means choosing life.
Good for you!
I know a lot of people were reached and I know of at least one baby saved. But you never see the rest who go on to kill their babies.
Probably because they themselves committed suicide. As you probably know already, those are the statistics.
When I got to High School, I was pro-abortion (or pro-choice as some folks call it). My parents also believe in abortion as a right, I've seen friends get pregnant, and seen some get an abortion, some kept there kids, while others gave theres up for adoption. All this made me actually a die hard pro-lifer. It became a matter of facts, and relating things. People that support abortion use alot of rhetoric, when the pro-life sides, uses less rhetoric, and more facts and science, they get converts. Part of the reason, to be honest with you, that I wasn't pro-life in the begining, was, the way the movement turned me off, it seems like all they wanted was attention, and had absolutley no real intent on educating people in a way that would work. I.E. preaching to the choir. I did see the error of my ways, but it took me having to look into these things personally, to learn the truth. If you give kids the facts, and let them choose between science or rhetoric, you'll win alot of them over.
For me, it was exactly the OPPOSITE. I was adamently pro-abortion in 1974...UNTIL I had to do a simulated radio broadcast on a controversial issue for a college course and I picked abortion, thinking it would be a piece of cake.
We were required to do an HONEST, UNBIASED investigation of both sides. I became PRO-LIFE over night and have been ever since.
BTW, I have a severely physically and mentally disabled child, who does not walk, talk, or feed herself, and has worn diapers all of her 18 years of life...and I am STILL PRO-LIFE!
I wrote a little about it a few days ago on: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/879641/posts?page=44#44 (#44 and #46)
WOMEN MUST BE FULLY INFORMED---AUDIBLY AND VISUALLY BY PHOTOS, SONOGRAM AND VIDEO---BY A NON-INTERESTED PARTY---ABOUT THE ABORTION SURGERY ITSELF AND THE GRAVE DANGERS AND PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL RAMIFICATIONS OF IT!
These children are pro-life because they treasure their own lives and therefore life itself.
I think that's a lot of it. They know they're lucky to be alive.
ummm.... mothers who didn't have abortions?..
I was pro-choice until 1982 when I saw some film at college... I think it was called The Silent Scream or something like that. A local church had permission to show the film and I'm glad they did.
They came from their mommies and know that some 40 million other babies didn't get that opportunity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.