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NRL News
Second
National Right to Life Academy Hones Students’ Debate Skills On a recent Friday morning in August, the National Right to Life conference room was the setting for a debate about abortion. Except this time the pro-abortion position was presented by staff members of NRLC. Skillfully playing the role of pro-abortionists, they used the arguments they so frequently come up against in their work to pass pro-life legislation. The pro-life side was comprised of students from this summer’s National Right to Life Academy. The academy students made a strong case for women’s right to know and ultrasound legislation as laws that truly respected women. In their rebuttal they illustrated the hypocrisy of the self-proclaimed “pro-choice” position in opposing laws that empowered women to make a more informed choice. The academy’s academic director, Burke Balch, awarded the debate to the hardworking students for their factual as well as persuasive rebuttals. Mr. Balch and Olivia Gans, director of American Victims of Abortion, then offered their final suggestions and critiques, and minutes later the students were packing up and heading out of class for the last time. Faster than the staff and students could have believed possible, the second National Right to Life Academy had come to a close. The academy class of 2008 was made up of students from all over the country: South Dakota, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. For six weeks they lived, ate, studied, and played together in downtown Washington, D.C. Daily classes at NRLC kept them busy from 9–5, but afterwards they regularly took part in the opportunities the nation’s capital offered them. From free Navy band concerts at the nearby memorial, to browsing the Smithsonian museums and National Archives, and playing frisbee on the Mall, the academy students kept busy in their limited free time and made the most of their summer in the city. This summer’s students enjoyed the special advantage of attending the 36th annual National Right to Life Convention, held locally in Crystal City, Virginia, over the Fourth of July weekend. Participating in the convention in the first week of the academy was an inspiring and exciting introduction to many themes and issues that would be explored in greater depth over the following weeks. The students met former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson and were especially touched by the presentation given by photojournalist Michael Clancy. They attended the special health care seminar on the Sunday immediately following the convention. For most, this was their first in-depth introduction to health care reform as an issue pro-lifers must be seriously involved in. Following the convention classes resumed as usual. An average day consisted of morning lectures from 9–12, followed by lunch and a studying break that was followed an afternoon “practicum” session. The daily practicums challenged the students to present the information they had learned earlier in the day in a simulated lobbying scenario, usually to an unfriendly, or at least uninformed, interlocutor. At the start of the course the students approached the practicum with trepidation, but each experienced significant improvement through their daily practice. The payoff was their victory in the final debate against the NRLC staff. Rachel Barga of Minster, Ohio, found that “[practicums] best represented real-life applications of class material; I don’t think things would sink in if I never had been challenged to articulate them.” Lecture courses covered every conceivable issue across the pro-life spectrum. Especially popular was the series on the history of the pro-life movement. Kelly Flak of Vermillion, Ohio, insisted, “[T]he only way a social movement like the one we are dealing with daily can be successful is to know what not to repeat, and what strategies have proved fruitful in the past.” Besides history, the courses covered the entire gamut of pro-abortion arguments, examined in depth a number of pro-life legislative proposals, and articulated point-by-point rebuttals of the pro-death movement’s arguments for assisted suicide and euthanasia. The graduates of the academy class of 2008 have a variety of aspirations and interests: accounting, business, writing, political campaigning, and nursing. Yet in all their varied paths, each has much to give to the pro-life movement. The education and training they received this summer has prepared them to be advocates of life in any setting. The persuasive speaking skills perfected in practicum can be used on a college campus as well as in a congressman’s office. Each of these students came to the academy with a passion to defend life already alive in their hearts, and they left with their minds full of plans to do so. |