The article's headline was "Why We Don't Care About Darfur." You may be wondering why I'm writing about an African country. That is the same thought that I had as I saw this article on the tray of my office fax machine. Who is sending me this and why?

Then I saw that the article was sent by the board chairman of Right to Life of Michigan, so it must have something to do with our life issues. And so it did.

The main theme of the article does apply to our efforts to protect human lives: the lives of millions upon millions of children who are killed by abortion and by embryo stem cell research.

In writing about the 200,000 people dead in Darfur or 3000 children dying daily of malaria mainly in Africa, Thea Singer, the author of this article, makes the point that people seem to be overwhelmed with these large numbers of suffering people and instead of helping with the problem feel that they are powerless because the problem is so huge that nothing can be done.

The article continues with the observations that we Americans are generous and eager to help individuals who are faced with problems; individuals such as toddler Jessica who, when she fell into a Texas well, strangers across the nation donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to her. Or open the newspaper and read about a dog or a dolphin or any pet who is rescued from death with thousands of dollars spent on the effort. In all of these cases people can "put a face" upon the tragedy. Singer used this quote from Joseph Stalin to make her point, "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."

Isn't that the challenge we face in the prolife movement? How do we put a face upon the millions of unborn children lost through legalized abortion? And even more difficult, how do we put a face upon the millions of human embryos killed through embryo stem cell research?

It is up to the prolife movement to convince people that the statistics are real people and that they as individuals are not helpless but can become integral pieces in our efforts for change.

Our Michigan prolife movement is made up of hundreds of thousands of households. These individual households by working together have and can continue to effect real change through individual actions. So instead of feeling helpless by staggering statistics, we ask people to help in small ways that together result in huge achievements.

Some examples of combined actions:

• thousands of smaller donations will match the large donation of one wealthy donor to killing human embryos
• hundreds of letters to legislators overcome the testimony of one university researcher
• individual letters to the editor opposed to abortion inform more readers than the paper's editorial praising abortion
• prolifers working in over 100 affiliates throughout Michigan will outwork a few politicians, lobbyists and scientists in the battle over cloning and killing

Let's be sure that the individual abortions that happen every day do not become just another statistic, but instead, each abortion is seen as the tragedy of one life killed and one life scarred.

We must not be overwhelmed by the numbers but actively seek a way to help, not in the future but now. See our web site, rtl.org and click on volunteer