Right to Life defends its beliefs
Mandy Reimer
co-president, Notre Dame Right to Life
I am writing this response to a letter printed Monday entitled "Right to Life not about abortion." While it is always difficult to listen to the rhetoric of those who disagree with the pro-life cause, I feel it necessary to respond to some of the complaints given by the author.
Yes, last week was Respect Life Week. It was a nationally recognized week in October that is set aside each year to commemorate the nearly 4,000 unborn children who are killed each day by abortion. We in the Notre Dame Right to Life club feel it is our duty to speak out against this evil which so deeply effects our nation. The Cemetery for the Innocents is just one response to our belief that life should be valued as sacred at every stage. But the efforts of the Right to Life advocates do not stop there.
Ms. Hock wrote of our duty to support those women who have chosen life and need our time, help and money. You are precisely correct. Of course they do, and that is why one of the three pillars of the Right to Life club is service. During Respect Life week members of our group collected donations and gifts for a teenage mother at Hannah's House, a home in South Bend for young unwed mothers. They held a baby shower for the young mother, complete with celebratory cake and bags of gifts. This is a recurring event which Right to Life does each semester and is just one of the ways we show our support for those women who have chosen life for their children. Members of our group are also active in the Women's Care Center, which provides counseling services and material aid to women considering abortion. Project MOM is a recently enacted event sponsored by our club in which boxes are placed in each of the residence halls on campus, giving every student the opportunity to donate clothes, toiletries and baby goods to the Women's Care Center. While we as a club are not allowed to donate any of our allotted funds directly to charity, we have our own fund-raisers, including the selling of "precious feet" pins and our yearly concession stand which generates funds to help our local crisis pregnancy centers. I hope that this is a sufficient response for those who were not aware of our club's service actions.
The next issue I would like to address is Ms. Hock's allusion to the tragedies that have occurred in our nation in the past week. She seemed to suggest that the abortion issue, as it is controversial, should be set aside for the time being in an effort to preserve national unity. However, it is precisely the purpose of our club, and I often feel, my particular calling in life, to speak about this division in an effort to make change. The abortion issue cannot be pushed aside, and as long as there are legal allowances for this atrocity, Notre Dame Right to Life will be there to stand against this injustice. Abortion, while it may not be on the forefront of the political agenda now, is just as much a reality today as it has been in recent years. We must not forget that unborn human beings are mercilessly killed in the womb in the thousands every day. I will not compare numbers of abortions with the recent terrorist attacks because numbers have a tendency to avert us away from reality and focus on arguments alone. Suffice it to say that one abortion is too many, just as one murder committed by a terrorist is too many. Life is sacred and must be defended at every stage.
My hope is that amidst these "complicated mixed messages in this higher education environment," (of which Ms. Hock speaks) students at Notre Dame and Saint Mary's will spend the time and effort to seek the truth. Notre Dame Right to Life will not back down, we will not cease to protest injustice and we will not stop praying for an end to the violence inflicted upon the most vulnerable of our society.
Mandy Reimer
co-president, Notre Dame Right to Life
Oct. 15, 2001
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, October 16, 2001
