Yesterday was one of those unusual days for us. Sure, there was the morning blogging, the correspondence, and checking in with Mom. But we rarely get a chance to have lunch with Sister Rita Jane and other friends (Karin Coker, Quint and Carol Coppi) from our GK Chesterton group over at the Lithuanian Cafe. Also unusual yesterday was the chance to drive up in the woods north of Omaha to have dinner with our good friends (and personal physician) Ralph and Carol Kramper.Oh yes, one more unusual item about the day -- until yesterday we had never had a Norwegian television crew come to our house to conduct an interview.
Jan, Pavel and Leif (the lone Swede in the group) were in town from NRK, Norway's public (and most popular) TV network to do a story on abortion in America, a story in which Omaha's infamous late-term abortionist Leroy Carhart would be featured. I was to provide "the other view." (Thanks, Julie!)
The guys were professional and friendly. We served coffee and spent almost an hour and a half talking and then doing the interview itself. We covered a lot of ground in the on-camera interview but they were particularly interested in our sidewalk counseling (motives and methods both), the pro-life movement's emphasis on pregnancy center ministry, the controversy over sex education, my opinions of Leroy Carhart, my work abroad, the history of the pro-life movement, and my religious motivations to engage in such work.
The one question that most perplexed them, however, was "Why, after so long a time, is abortion still such a desperate controversy here in the United States?" Their experience in Europe gave them few clues. After all, abortion had come to most Western Europe countries, been rapidly accepted and was now off the political agenda altogether. So they were sincerely trying to figure out why four decades had elapsed since abortion had begun to be legalized in the U.S. and yet abortion was still, as Jan described it, "issue number one for America's people."
My answer, given in 20-30 second bursts as we explored this issue, centered on three things: 1) The deep religious faith of a large section of the American people. I explained that for these Christians (Catholic, evangelical, Orthodox), defending the sanctity of life is a biblical command. It is our Christian obligation. Therefore, no matter what politicians or judges or celebrities or the opinion polls may say, we have a motivation for our pro-life activity that is transcendent. They seemed to like my biological illustration in which I explained that though secularists tend to be like amphibians, that is, cold-blooded animals whose body temperature adapts to that of their surroundings, genuine Christians exemplify quite human qualities; namely, their blood runs warm until it ceases to run at all. Christians seek a higher goal, accept the fact of a higher judgment and depend upon a higher power. Thus, the pro-life movement in America remains strong, vibrant and uncompromising because of its starkly religious nature.
2) Technology has proven to be a tremendous ally of our movement. No one with any sense of responsibility or honesty (make that any sense, period) still tries to say that the unborn child is just a clump of cells or mass of undifferentiated tissue. And the stubborn fools who still do talk like this have been marginalized to the nutty fringe of the debate. Fetal photography, fetal surgery, techniques and equipment which are used to help earlier and earlier "preemie" babies and, most of all, the development of ultrasound has given the pro-life movement, which always held the higher moral ground (justice, compassion, opposition to barbaric violence) the higher scientific ground as well.
And 3) I told the interviewers that Europeans might have a harder time identifying with this third foundation but that it was of critical importance to their question. It was simply this -- Americans have always held as ideals the right of self-determination, liberty and equality, democracy. It is why most Americans still treasure the Declaration of Independence with its heralding of the God-given, unalienable right to life and the Constitution with its separation of powers. Thus when an unscientific, unjust, wildly unpopular law is arbitrarily forced upon all Americans (wiping out the abortion laws of all 50 states) by a mere 7 people, it is bound to generate enormous and long-lasting antipathy.
No, I confirmed to the TV crew, because of these three things (the depth of our religious faith, the ever-advancing power of technology, and the incontrovertibly unconstitutional nature of legalized abortion), the pro-life movement will only become stronger in the years to come.
The interview went well and we were confident that God had answered our prayers. But I've learned a few things from 3 decades of doing these things besides interview techniques -- and one of the most important is that the ultimate fate of the on-air presentation rests with those doing the editing. So our prayers (and yours) are still very much in order.
Like I said, yesterday was an unusual day.
