By Felicia Goeken
Volunteer Identification Program Coordinator
It has been
my experience that by sometimes straining to see what lies dimly at a distance,
we can miss an opportunity that exists right at hand. With that in mind,
to commemorate the over 36 million unborn children who have been killed
legally and by "physicians" over the past 25 years, may I suggest
we pledge to make 1998 the year we commit ourselves faithfully to undertake
the tasks that lie clearly at hand?
The National Right to Life Committee's Volunteer Identification Program
(VIP) presents just such an opportunity. The VIP is easy to get
into - - fill out the coupon below and mail or fax it to me in Alton, Illinois
- - and it pays rich dividends for the defenders of unborn babies. Best
of all it's "close at hand" and can be done now!
The VIP empowers you. The program offers the opportunity both to
contribute personally and to bring other people into the activities that
are absolutely necessary. It enables your local right to life organization
- - the backbone of our Movement - - to expand all of their own programs.
And guess what? If you don't have a local pro-life group, the people you
identify through the VIP will provide the raw materials to create
one! If you do have an ongoing local group, the VIP will allow your
NRLC state affiliate and its chapters to expand and increase in numbers,
adding more helping hands.
We can and should lament those physicians who kill unborn children for money.
We can also lament the lawyers and judges who have forgotten the meaning
of justice. And we must always tell office holders that they are wrong when
they vote for legalized killing. But it's not enough to point the finger
at those who have created abortion on demand or who sustain the slaughter
of the innocents.
Better, dear friends, that you use that same finger to participate in our
Volunteer Identification Program. By dialing your neighbors and recruiting
friends to do likewise, you can build a mountain of pro-life volunteer strength
composed of friends and neighbors willing to do what is necessary, right
now!
That finger, used to dial a telephone, either in your home or at a telephone
bank, can create such a strong foundation of friends for the unborn that
another 25 years of killing will not be tolerated.
Whether you have been working on behalf of the unborn for 25 days or 25
years, you can actively pursue an activity that will build up a VIP
in your own area to activate thousands of people who will bring us closer
and closer to a pre-1973 situation when unborn babies were protected.
As a participant in the VIP you also become part of a historic effort
to help abortion's other victims - - the mothers and fathers who suffer
the loss of their children. Reconciling parents and their unborn children
is, after all, what we are about.
On January 22, 1998, hundreds of thousands of people around the nation solemnly
commemorated the lost lives of over 36 million of unborn children. Let us
honor their memory by resolving to find new pro-life champions in every
state of this great nation to hasten the day legal protection is returned
to the littlest Americans.
NRLC Volunteer Identification Program (VIP) is a telephone survey conducted
in all 50 states with the cooperation of NRLC's state affiliates.
The survey is done either from home or from phone banks. VIP volunteers
are the primary strength of the project. Identified pro-life people are
then enlisted at the local and state levels to strengthen their organizational
efforts.