Reflections on Walking for Life in 2012
I used to think I might be a martyr someday. I actually wanted to be one. I believed this might occur during San Francisco's Walk for Life West Coast, when in 2005, for the first time, we challenged the City's militant pro-abortion culture at our peril. But something happened on the way to the Coliseum. The secular culture went too far in its unconditional embrace of abortion and our side started to win. Not only were we Walkers not martyred, but polls started turning against those favoring unrestricted abortion. Young people came to San Francisco in droves championing the Walk's message that abortion hurts women, men, children, families, society; and women deserve better than abortion. We glimpsed the future of the pro-life movement and it was not what the prevailing culture was predicting.
Wesley Smith, who I think of as one of today's prophets, describes an insidious swing away from the Judeo-Christian ethic that built this country, but he never says it's inevitable. Remember Lord of the Rings' elfin maiden, Galadriel? She shows Frodo the future in her magic mirror, but never says that future is set in stone. "Remember that the mirror shows many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless those that behold the vision turn aside from their path to prevent them."
The Walk for Life confronts the worst of San Francisco, a City that prides itself on being unreservedly pro-abortion. But where sin abounds, grace does abound more. The Walk for Life started eight years ago and, against all odds, grew quickly from 7,500 to over 40,000. The vocal, vitriol and hostile counter-protest dropped from about 200 the first year to a mere handful this year. If you can't beat them, ignore them, became the opposition's mantra. It was picked up by the media. We were largely ignored for years. But history doesn't always repeat itself. This year, SFBay, a secular paper, ran this headline post Walk: "Well, this is awkward. One day after a rain-soaked, day-long Occupy extravaganza failed to draw more than a couple thousand protestors, Walk for Life goes and gathers up 40,000 pro-life supporters that march and shut down Market Street." (If anyone wondered about Occupy's position on abortion, please note that it was Occupy protestors who blocked the Walk's path down Market with a wall of coat hangers.)
Maybe we're getting harder to ignore. Maybe the Walk for Life will be our gift to the West Coast in the 21st century and we won't be martyrs after all.
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