It’s been a year since our official launch at the 2006 March for Life. We started with a bold vision of what Americans can accomplish through faith and the charitable actions it inspires. We started with a challenge—can we—We the People of the United States of America—eliminate the demand for abortion? Most Americans in the pro-life movement are believers in the God of the possible. So the question to us at the outset was not whether we could end abortion, but how quickly. Americans have accomplished the “impossible” before. We defeated slavery and Jim Crow. We have sent Americans to the moon. We won the Cold War.
In 2006 the pro-life movement had what some might call a few setbacks. We saw, for example, the passage of a South Dakota law outlawing abortion, only to see it struck down. We could look at this and other instances and be tempted to lose hope. But we at Americans on Call see this as a wake-up call. We see spelled out in these circumstances the fact that it is not the job of the legislatures or the Supreme Court to end abortion through laws or litigation. It is in the people’s hands to end it through action. And never has there been a people better prepared and better able to confront an evil than we are in the face of abortion.
This year, let’s resolve to do things differently. When you pray this year, pray that you will have the opportunity to bring a pregnant woman to the help she needs to bring her child to term, or to bring a person grieving over an abortion to healing. Pray that this will happen for all of us, all across America.
It is our calling to meet women in crisis pregnancies with love, charity, and healing. Let us turn clothes we wear, the car that we drive, and the looks on our faces into that invitation. Together in a spirit of faith, unity, and solidarity with each other and with those in need, We the People of the United States can end the Age of Abortion. We outnumber the women who will consider abortion this year. Our love is stronger than the fear or the grief they may experience. But we cannot shine that light on their hearts unless we make our intentions known—every. single. day.
All Americans involved in the pro-life movement are already Americans on Call. We are not a new effort; we are a universal symbol for the efforts that exist, and an effort to make all pro-lifers ambassadors for the excellent resources out there. We exist so that your efforts can be more effective. Next year, let’s make the March for Life a sea of purple flags. Let’s dot every community and workplace with this invitation to help. Together we can show the United States and the world that we are united under one common goal—to help others in need.
Abortion is a broken and outdated concept. Through our faith, our individual committed efforts, and God’s help, we can make abortion go the way of the 8-track. Our radical commitment to charity can—and will—bring that truth to fruition.