By Mark Pickup

Editor’s note. This appeared yesterday on Mr. Pickup’s blog at http://markpickup.org. Mark is a well-known Canadian pro-life activist, as is his wife, LaRee.

Mark and LaRee Pickup

Two blog entries ago, I wrote about my wife, LaRee, and I speaking at the 2010 U.S. National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast. The entry was entitled "A woman's pro-Life message for a time such as this." I gave it that title because LaRee spoke with such profound personal understanding of abortion, post-abortion grief, and the sorrow of watching a family member degenerate with incurable and chronic illness and unresolved grief can and does fuel calls for euthanasia and assisted suicide. LaRee knows because she has lived these. It was LaRee's words of insight and wisdom that captured the audience from across the United States.

We have received an encouraging letter from the President of the National Right to Life Committee, Dr. Wanda Franz, based in Washington, D.C.., in response to that keynote address that we delivered. Dr. Franz stated, in part:

Dear LaRee and Mark:

"Your presentation was truly inspiring and we heard so many comments about how moving it was ... ."

"I especially want to thank you for sharing such a personal story about your abortion experience. It is another dimension of the extraordinary life experience you have had."

"You have such a keen understanding that society's callousness toward these vulnerable individuals [the sick and disabled] grows out of our acceptance of abortion and our callous disregard of the unborn. These insights have given your work such urgency because you have so clearly articulated the dangers we are all facing in embracing the "culture of death" that is growing around us."

Dr. Franz concluded her letter by saying "I want to wish you well in your work, and I urge you to continue your work of speaking out on behalf of all endangered human beings. ..."

Thank you Dr. Franz. We will continue to speak out as a couple to any group willing to listen and every venue afforded to us.