More Huge Successes at Unlikely Places!

By Michael New

Few people would expect Harvard University to be a hotbed of pro-life activism. However, in recent years, thanks to intense pro-abortion opposition, pro-life students at Harvard have made quite a name for themselves.

A few years ago, a law student who merely posted a series of signs which read "Smile, Your Mom Chose Life" received nationwide attention. This year an undergraduate group generated controversy with nothing more than its "Natalie" campaign - - a series of posters depicting an unborn child in different stages of fetal development were placed around campus every week.

Pro-lifers will be heartened to know that this activism has continued well into the spring. In fact, in mid-April Harvard Law, School's Society for Law Life and Religion hosted a pro-life symposium entitled "Abortion and the Culture of Death."

The first speaker, Vera Faith Lord, serves as the head of Alpha Omega Life ministries. During the course of her talk, Ms. Lord talked about her own post-abortive experience.

She began her remarks by talking about the slogan, "It is your body and your right to choose."

"That slogan is everywhere," she said, "but no one tells you what happens after you choose."

Ms. Lord talked about her own experiences and she described herself as the "poster child for abortion." She had a black eye and a broken rib and was abusing alcohol and drugs when she was pregnant. Everyone told her that abortion was a kind choice and the right thing to do. "However, every word was a lie," she said.

Ms. Lord spoke of the one awful moment which many post-abortive women go through: She realized she had done the most unnatural thing and killed her offspring. "Post-Abortion Syndrome is the worst feeling on the planet," said Lord. "It would be fine if you could run away but you cannot."

Ms. Lord told the conference attendees that there is a way out. "There are nine books and over 21 national organizations that help post-abortive women," she said. "However, the abortion industry does not want you to know about this. They do not want people to know about the dirty secret behind the door marked choice."

Lord went on to tell her audience that if more people know about this, the abortion industry will no longer be able to sweep it under the rug. Ms. Lord concluded by appealing to the audience to "make abortion beyond illegal, make it unthinkable."

Dr. Bernard Nathanson followed Vera Faith Lord. Nathanson traced his story from the time he was one of the founding members of the organized pro-abortion community until his eventual conversion to an unabashed pro-life position.

In the late 1960s Nathanson was one of the founders of what was then known as the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), which later changed its name to National Abortion Rights Action League. He presided over one of the largest abortion clinics in the world, as he explained in his book Aborting America.

Following a series of gradual changes, by the late 1970s Nathanson had become unequivocally pro-life. He talked about his efforts to produce The Silent Scream in 1984, which depicts an ultrasound of an abortion.

Nathanson describes the video as "the most widely viewed documentary film and has saved thousands of lives." Nathanson then showed the audience another video which has also garnered a great deal of attention in recent months. This video shows fetal surgery, where viewers could actually see surgical operations being performed on an unborn baby.

Nathanson concluded his remarks by saying that if "we respect the sanctity of life, the high road of the future will be clear for centuries to come."

At the end of the conference was a talk by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, the editor-in-chief of the influential magazine, First Things. He told the students that they did not choose to be part of the pro-life movement.

Instead, they were recruited by their Baptism, he said. That there even is a pro-life movement is "an inexhaustible source of thanksgiving."

Fr. Neuhaus added that many thought the Supreme Court's 1973 decision would settle the debate. "However," said Neuhaus, "no question is more unsettled. Thank God!"

Fr. Neuhaus said that politics is "free persons debating the question of how we order our lives together." He said that who belongs to the "we" is one of the most im-portant questions. "If we say the very weak, the very small, and the de-pendent don't belong, what kind of logic has been insinuated?"

Partial-birth abortion was another topic that Fr. Neuhaus addressed. He praised the efforts of the National Right to Life Committee to ban partial-birth abortion. He gave these efforts the credit for the increase in pro-life sentiment that has occurred during the past decade.

Neuhaus concluded by saying that these efforts have opened a dialogue between pro-lifers and others. "Dialogue might change their opinion, and maybe lead to their conversion," he said.

Fr. Neuhaus ended his remarks by talking about World Youth Day in 1993. He said that many bishops were reluctant to host World Youth Day because they felt it would flop. However, the fact that thousands of young people came and were inspired by the Pope's call for "Moral grandeur" was a sign of encouragement, he said.

Other symposium speakers included Father Paul McNellis of Boston College and Professor Lee Oser of the College of the Holy Cross. Father McNellis spoke about abortion and church teaching on sexuality and chastity, and Professor Oser described how the sanctity of life is reflected in literature and art.

Overall the pro-life symposium was a huge success as over 100 students and faculty members were in attendance. Even better, a fundraising dinner that followed the symposium raised over $1,000 for a local crisis pregnancy center.

Many law students who helped to plan the conference were inspired by its success and are already considering various speakers for next year's symposium in 2004.