President Message: Small, individual actions can make a difference

On March 6, I was fortunate to hear an inspiring prolife speaker, Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life. Father Frank was the keynote speaker at the annual benefit dinner for the RLM Educational Fund sponsored by the Michigan Knights of Columbus.

Father Pavone challenged the audience to become actively involved in our struggle to protect the unborn through an innovative approach: non cooperation with abortion providers. His premise is that each and every abortion facility is like any other business. That in order to operate efficiently it must depend upon outside businesses and vendors.

Father Frank used as examples that here in Michigan in order to be open for business parking lots had to be plowed and salted; trash has to be collected; carpets have to be cleaned; roofs need to be repaired. He asked the audience what would be the result of prolifers refusing to do business with a facility that kills unborn children?

While this non-cooperation may not close down an abortion provider, it may make it more difficult and perhaps more costly to do business. Plus through this positive action a message of life is sent: the killing of unborn babies is not something that we want to be involved with in any way.

Probably no one reading this column is providing business related services to a local abortion facility, but there may be many of your friends and neighbors that don't realize that the center downtown is not just a "woman's health center" as advertised in the yellow pages. Instead this is the center that either does abortions or is a major abortion referral business.
The horror of abortion and the sheer numbers of babies killed can be overwhelming and discouraging; often the thought is that there is nothing I can personally do to stop this slaughter. But small, individual actions can make a difference.

In her book, JOURNEY UP THE RIVER, Anne Husted Burleigh quotes poet Czeslaw Milosz that there are "...pockets of virtue as repositories of civilization. There are always these pockets, he says, and these little bastions of virtue are what keep the highest values of civilization alive for our children."

Each of us can be part of a "pocket of virtue" through small actions whether simply being aware of what medical facilities or doctors provide abortions, or by writing that letter to a public official, or seeking out more knowledge by attending a right to life dinner or our upcoming Legislative Day. We are each called to be faithful and to carry our candle of light against so much of our culture that has a romance with death.

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