How We Will Win

The credit for the inspiration behind this Special Commemorative Issue belongs to Jacki Ragan, NRLC's director of state organizational development. Nobody but nobody has a better feel for where this Movement is going--and needs to go--than Jacki.

But why an entire edition devoted to grassroots organizing? Why now, at the beginning of 2002?

No doubt subconsciously there was a greater urgency because two months ago NRLC packed its bags and took up residence in its own building. This move to new quarters carried substantial substantive and symbolic weight.

Substantively, moving to 512-10th Street NW means money that formerly went to rent will go at least in part to educational activities. (If our generous contributors send enough extra money to pay off the entire mortgage, all that rent money can be rerouted into mentoring the American people.) And because the building is ours, we will be able to accomplish things we couldn't do when we were renting.

Symbolically, this four-block move within our nation's capital represents a new beginning, a new chapter in a story whose narrative thread is the unbelievable dedication and devotion of people whose names history will never record. The workhorse of the pro-life movement--National Right to Life--is now positioned to make an even greater contribution to the cause of defenseless unborn babies, injured newborns, and the medically dependent elderly.

But the whole thrust of this issue is that when journalists and political scientists conjure up "National Right to Life" in their minds, they completely misunderstand who NRLC is.

True, the Washington-based national headquarters coordinates the activities of the 50 state affiliates and 3,000+ chapters and is the "face" in the corridors of power. Thus, the understandable impression to those not in the know is that we who work in D.C. are the engine that makes this Movement run. Wrong. We are more like the caboose. The driving force is you!

As eloquent as those in D.C. may be in promoting public policy and educating the American people about abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia, they would go unheeded were it not for those who do the daily work in communities across this great nation. People who we must persuade to see things our way listen to us because they know if they don't, millions of people across this nation will know their voices are being ignored. You are the children's megaphone.

Frankly, our issues are not in the limelight right now. How could they be in light of September 11 and its aftermath? But that does not mean that action--proactive as well as defensive--is not taking place quietly behind the scenes or that the life issues won't assume their usual prominence in the months to come. It is and they will!

So, with that thought in mind, where are we on the eve of the 29th anniversary of Roe v. Wade? Let's start by comparing resources. Pro-abortionists have the glitzy celebrities, the Media Establishment, and oodles of money. The children have you.

Which is why I readily concurred with Jacki when she said there was a real need for a Special January 22 Commemorative Issue whose theme would be, "Now, More than Ever." We agreed there are at least two major reasons we need to shift into organizational hyperdrive.

First, we no longer are unopposed at the local arena. To be sure, in terms of organizing people, it seems as if pro-abortionists lack an opposable thumb. But however badly they fumble about, they no longer concede the grassroots organizing turf to us.

Second, besides the fact that we have truth on our side and they don't, the sole advantage we have over our opposition is our greater ability to tap into thousands of volunteers at the local level. But that is a light we cannot afford to hide under a bushel. We have to make sure officeholders, the media, and ordinary Americans realize that there are far more of us than them and that you are doing great work.

I suspect that, disproportionately, the readers of this special edition are either long-time veterans or people relatively new to the Movement. Some old-timers might be forgiven if they've concluded, "My gosh, 29 years later and still the babies die." The novice can only say, "Wow, I didn't know the pro-abortionists were so determined.

"But what can easily get lost is that each cycle in abortion politics (from the pro-life perspective) begins from a higher "plateau." That is, each begins at a point closer to the day legal protection will be restored to unborn babies. This is crucially important.

For example, pro-abortionists are still smarting from the shellacking they took over partial-birth abortion. In Congress, there is a raft of pro-life legislation working its way through the legislative labyrinth. And, thanks to a tremendous effort by pro-lifers, an ardent pro-lifer, George W. Bush, is the President, eager to sign such legislation into law.

But he needs more like-minded officeholders to get over the hump--a hump that begins with a Senate now controlled by pro- abortion Democrats, led by Majority Leader Tom Daschle (SD). And more communities throughout our great nation need to have their consciences raised to the quietly effective work pro-lifers do soselflessly on behalf of unborn children and their mothers.

Newcomers lack the benefit of historical perspective. But if for just one day they could walk in the shoes of those pioneer pro- lifers who in the 1970s stood firm against seemingly impossible odds, they would marvel. They would see that the cause of unborn children easily could have been lost in the wilderness.

Overall, this "how to" issue is designed to explain and explore what it is that successful local and state organizations have traditionally done to become successful, what activities they undertake on a day-to-day basis, and how NRLC helps in their ongoing development. There is nothing magical to the formula, no magic wand that we can wave. But the requirements for success--persistence, imagination, creativity, and leadership--do not depend on the New York Times or academia suddenly taking a shine to us. We have it in our own power to accomplish what needs to be done.

Be assured that there is a tried-and-true formula which blends the best of the old with the best of the new and can be successfully implemented in your community. Essentially, what we do is recruit pro-lifers, offer them something that they are capable of doing and comfortable with undertaking, and then encouraging them--and the organization--to continue to bring in scads of new people.

That is why this issue talks so much about how to find pro-lifers. We use everything, including word of mouth "referrals," newspaper ads, speeches, direct mail, yellow page ads, brochures, television and radio appearances as well as a dozen different events which garner media attention (and help to financially underwrite the local group).

Once we find sympathizers we offer them a role in the Movement. This hands-on work could be something as routine as helping to keep the office maintained, or slapping labels on chapter newspapers, or working to identify volunteers, or updating the membership rolls, or visiting the local paper's editorial board, or lobbying the legislature, or volunteering for the state's pro-life PAC, or offering legal services at a reduced rate or free.

Nothing could be more important than this continual infusion of new people. All of the previously mentioned recruiting activities recruit new champions as do presentations at local schools and colleges and appearances during or after church services, (to name just a couple other examples). Remember: it is we who have the hundreds, even thousands of people who've dedicated a decade or more of their lives to this sacred cause.

What scares the pro-abortionists more than anything else is the knowledge that their people get psyched up for a season--and then fade away. But it's not just the fear that most pro-abortionists are really fair-weather workers that keeps the Abortion Establishment up nights. It is the knowledge that our people are altruists whose motivations are completely unselfish. You are in the public arena not for personal aggrandizement but to save others. That's why you don't fade away when the going gets tough.

You might say that pro-abortionists, politically speaking, are looking for the perfect superconductor. They want a political environment in which there is no resistance to their "energy," where there is no cost exacted in their campaign to kill tens of millions of helpless babies.

In the realm of physics, resistance is eliminated by cooling superconductors to unbelievably cold temperatures - - that is, minus hundreds of degrees below zero. In the political realm that would mean freezing pro-lifers out of the political debate.

But that can never happen as long as we are vigorously active at the local and state level, as long as we contest the idiocy that abortion is about "who decides" rather than "who is killed." Please read this issue carefully and pass it along to friends. Most of all

GET INVOLVED!

dave andrusko can be reached at dha1245@juno.com