I was not selling loose cigarettes. I did not reach for Wilson’s gun. I did not blaspheme your God.
If I had been killed for any of these things—if I had suffered disproportionately for crime, aggression, or imprudence—I may have had our nation’s pity. But as I am, I can do nothing so public to earn American attention. If I was identified with an ethnicity victimized by prejudice and injustice, I might have had your sympathy. But I am not so special. I belong to all peoples—black and white, rich and poor—so I merit few American tears.
I am not Charlie. I am not Eric Garner or Michael Brown—though all three once were me. I am the legally unprotected, disrespected unborn infant in the womb.
When a convenience store robber was tragically shot, Ferguson rioted. When a cigarette pusher was tragically killed, FDR traffic was halted. When a satirical magazine staff was tragically murdered, millions marched on Paris. After their tragic deaths, many stood up for life—for the justice that protects it, before the God who grants it dignity. The victims were not villains, but if we are honest, they were not exactly heroes either. If we stood up for grown men and women, like us, stained by sin, will we now stand with unborn children, unlike us, innocent of every crime?
Tragedy has a way of becoming banal. So many mothers and so many children have been victimized by the abortion industry, the magnitude of the damage is almost too large to wrap our minds and our hearts around. Our passions are stirred by the blood of twelve journalists, but frankly we are overwhelmed by the thought that 57 million children have been terminated since 1973 in the US, and somewhere over 1 billion worldwide in the same period. If even two hundred of us shed a tear for each child and each mother victimized by abortion in the past three decades, we would fill an Olympic-size swimming pool with our weeping. The twelve were gunned down in Paris for the world to see; the millions were terminated, never to see the world. The tragedy is too great, the horror too hidden—that is why we march.
We march, that the world may see that life is sacred even when it is hidden, inconvenient, and unloved.
We march, that all mothers might be spared the tragic decision to terminate unborn life, and that all who have suffered from an abortion might discover the infinite mercy of God who takes away our sins and gives us new life.
We march, that the God who became an unborn child might hear our cries for mercy, grant our nation the grace of conversion, and spare us when he comes to judge the living and the dead.
Last year there was weeping in Ferguson. Last month mourning in NYC. Last week millions marched on Paris. Today, we stand for life in DC.
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Image: Unborn child at fifteen weeks
