Pro-Life And Peaceful

Like that of most college students, my usual Saturday schedule involves getting out of bed sometime after noon. But this past Saturday, at a little past eight in the morning, I found myself on a subway car with several members of the Harvard-Radcliffe Alliance for life (HRAL). Together we were heading out to Brookline to participate in a prayer vigil outside the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic.

I went to the clinic because a friend of mine, an individual very active in the pro-life movement, invited me to go. My decision to go was not easy, however. I must confess that I had some major misgivings about going to the vigil. Although I haven't wavered on the issue of abortion, I have had some serious doubts about the wisdom and usefulness of pro-life protests.

These doubts only increased in the wake of John Salvi's horrendous killing of Planned Parenthood receptionist Shannon Lowney (which took place at the very same clinic in front of which we prayed this weekend). I came to view the protests as counter-productive and even a bit intrusive. As we walked over to the clinic, passing an intimidating group of angry pro-choicers, I became even more nervous and confused. I leaned over and asked my roommate, a fellow protester, "Do we really have the right to be doing this?"

But once prayer vigil began my doubts began to disappear. We were doing nothing disruptive. We were simply praying the rosary quietly. The prochoice protesters were shouting, their faces filled with rage. They rattled homemade noisemakers to break our concentration. But we persevered in prayer, in a manner that was unobtrusive, humble and devoid of anger.

Now I know the answer to the question I posed to my roommate. The answer is yes, we did have the right to pray outside the clinic. The reason for that answer can be found in the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. The question I haven't yet answered is this one: Why are liberals praised as crusaders for justice when they exercise their First Amendment rights, while conservatives are condemned as self-righteous lunatics?

The pro-life movement is regarded as a group of religious fanatics. I have to confess that before I went to the clinic, the image I had in my mind of a pro-lifer was a decidedly negative one. I imagined this person as a deeply religious, Southern white male, probably uneducated, probably racist and fairly low on the socioeconomic ladder. But when I looked around myself at the vigil, I saw people from all walks of life. Men and women, Blacks and whites, young and old were gathered together in prayer.

No one will deny that the vast majority of pro-lifers are deeply religious. After all, the activity we were engaged in outside the clinic was prayer. But the religious don't have a monopoly on opposition to abortion. Courageous individuals like Nat Hentoff, a Jewish atheist, oppose abortion on philosophical grounds alone. If people of vastly different moral and religious beliefs can join together to fight abortion, I fail to see how it can constitute the imposition of any elaborate moral code.

The American people need to understand that the pro-life movement enjoys great diversity. Members of the movement share only two things in common: a deep-rooted belief that abortion is the unjustified taking of a human life and an unassailable faith in the power of love. The pro-life movement isn't about anger. The movement is about love and the expansion of love. It's about extending society's protection to a group of powerless and voiceless individuals. They may not yet like us (yet), but they're still a part of our human community.

People on both sides will acknowledge that abortion is an extremely complex issue. The women who are faced with the question of whether or not to have an abortion often feel confused and deeply troubled. Before a woman chooses to have an abortion, she should stop and think long and hard about her choice. If a prayer vigil outside a clinic can make a woman think twice about what she's about to do, then it is a worthwhile and noble endeavor.

This is David B. Lat's last column of the semester.