100 ways to be Pro-Life

Excerpt from 100 Ways to Be Pro-Life – Held By His Pierced Hands

I am pro-life. I’m not just pro-birth or anti-abortion. I’m pro-life. That means I’m pro-babies and pro-elderly and pro-immigrant and pro-disabled and pro-peace. I’m anti-poverty and anti-discrimination and anti-hatred. I vote against abortion and against capital punishment and against toxic waste. I offer help to pregnant women, single mothers, overworked fathers, depressed teenagers, homeless veterans, middle-class suburbanites, undocumented immigrants, uneducated children, struggling students, lonely old men, and frightened refugees. I don’t think your life is worth any more because you’re white or American or intelligent or born. I don’t think it’s enough to be pro-life and not do anything about it. And while we may each be drawn to focus on a different pro-life issue, I’m not convinced that you can really be pro-life if you’re not whole-life–conception to natural death, no exceptions.

We can’t all pray outside clinics or write legislation or teach the next generation to value the dignity of each life. But we can all fight for life. We can love the lives around us and reach out to those far away. We can sacrifice for those who need it and refuse to be silenced. We can question and weep and rage and pray. We can fight.

1. Adopt a cute little baby.
2. Adopt a belligerent teenager.
3. Adopt a child with a cleft palate, spina bifida, or multiple sclerosis.
4. Thank a birth mother.
5. Be a foster parent.
6. Take a meal to a family that’s struggling.
7. Start awkward conversations about hard issues.
8. Take a pay cut to do something meaningful.
9. Stop by your local crisis pregnancy center. Do whatever they need done.
10. Write to your Grandmother.
11. Have a picnic in the park for the homeless.
12. Throw a baby shower for a teen mother.
13. Offer to babysit for that frazzled couple you know–for free.
14. Read up on immigration reform.
15. Don’t buy clothes made in sweatshops.
16. Show your children pictures of unborn babies.
17. Spiritually adopt a prisoner on death row.
18. Love your children.
19. Love other people’s children.
20. Share this article about what a blessing an autistic child can be.
21. When a couple suffers a miscarriage, mourn with them.
22. Get involved with your local Catholic Worker House.
23. Buy generics–give the difference to Catholic Relief Services.
24. Recognize that mental illness is an illness.
25. Go through your closet once a year–give anything you haven’t worn to the St. Vincent de Paul society.
26. Stop judging people because their ancestors immigrated after yours did.
27. Support businesses that are taking a risk in order to fight for our first amendment rights.
28. Give up your seat to an elderly/handicapped/pregnant/world-weary person.
29. Give blood.
30. Give a kidney.
31. Give bottles of water to day laborers waiting for work.
32. When an unmarried woman tells you she’s pregnant, figure out a way to tell her how proud you are. If your life is transparent, telling her she’s your hero won’t make her think extramarital sex is okay in your book.
33. Read Dead Man Walking and all the footnotes.¹
34. Invite a woman dealing with a crisis pregnancy to live in your home.
35. Take your baby to a nursing home and hand her around.
36. Advocate for women’s health without advocating for killing unborn women.
37. Buy a homeless man dinner.
38. Watch this movie and tell me if it’s as cute as the trailers made it look.
39. Watch Bella or Unplanned in a group and then discuss. Is abortion ever necessary? Would you have gone to the clinic with her?
40. Watch Million Dollar Baby in a group and then discuss.² Was there another way out? What value does suffering have?
41. Teach your kids to tithe from their allowances; meet quarterly to pick a charity to give to.
42. Study Just War Theory before you support a war.
43. Study Just War Theory before you support pulling out.
44. Have babies.
45. Smile at them in public.
46. Smile at them in private.
47. Write your senator.
48. Thank your priest after he preaches on any controversial topic.
49. Give to people who need it–no questions asked.
50. Give until it hurts.
    I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc. is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say that they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditures excludes them.–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
51. Pay a fair wage.
52. Tell your local crisis pregnancy center you’ll babysit for their clients–free.
53. Tell your story.
55. Invite your aging parents to live with you.
56. Keep blessing bags in your car for the homeless.
57. Talk–gently–about abortion with those who support it.
58. Love post-abortive women (and men) extra hard.
59. PRAY!
60. Thank a veteran.
61. Stand up to a bully.
62. Don’t waste food/clothing/energy/an opportunity to help.
63. Stay informed.
64. Choose to believe that people generally have good intentions.
65. Give your time, talent, and treasure to a soup kitchen, a battered women’s shelter, an assisted living facility, Habitat for Humanity, legal aid, prison ministry, a home for teen moms, a camp for the disabled…anywhere that helps anyone.
66. Talk about atrocities being perpetrated in other countries.
67. Sign the Declaration of Life and give a copy to your family members. It may not be legally binding, but it’s a powerful statement.
68. Recognize beauty in every human face. And every body type. And every ability level. And every set of problems and addictions and anxieties.
69. Figure out why research done on adult stem cells is better than on embryonic stem cells–on every level.
70. Question Guantanamo Bay, nuclear proliferation, gun laws, and international debt.
71. Spend some time in Palestine and begin questioning that wall.
72. Befriend the outcast.
73. Share the Gospel with someone.
74. Buy locally.
75. Take a risk on someone handicapped/uneducated/foreign when you’re hiring.
76. Learn the facts about human embryology. Share them.
77. Recognize that poverty is not synonymous with laziness.
78. Live on minimum wage for a month.
79. Smile more.
80. Don’t use hormonal contraceptives.³
81. Bake cookies for prisoners.
82. Educate people about human trafficking.
83. Don’t assume all homeless people are on drugs.
84. Talk to a friend about her alcohol problem.
85. Go to the March for Life.
86. Blog about pro-life issues.
87. Realize that war, poverty, capital punishment, education, discrimination, euthanasia, health care, immigration, affordable housing, fair trade, prostitution, and sweatshops are also pro-life issues.
88. Take your kids to the Special Olympics.
89. Pray for those who go hungry every time you eat. Eat accordingly.
90. Talk to a theologian when dealing with end-of-life issues.
91. Reduce, reuse, recycle.
92. Mentor at-risk youth.
93. Stop yelling at your kids.
94. Walk more, drive less.
95. Look for a need in your community. Meet it.
96. Teach ESL for free.
97. Befriend someone who disagrees with you.
98. Listen more than you talk.
99. Don’t give up on people.
100. Forgive.
101. Love everybody. No exceptions.

Your whole life can be a battle for life–every life. What would you add to the list?

1. They’re out of date but little has changed besides inflation as far as I know. []
2. Warning: rated morally offensive by the USCCB reviews for violence and the obvious moral quandary. I had no qualms about showing it to mature teenagers. []

Or any, for that matter.