“They got a name for the winners in the world;
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide;
Call me Deacon Blues.” –Steely Dan (Deacon Blues, 1977)
A woman approached me at an event the other day sporting a large, “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart” button. While she is not new to the pro-life calling, she has not picked up on what we are seeing across the country.
She read the recent Planned Parenthood Annual Report, and pointed out the slight uptick in reported abortions by the abortion giant. “It’s getting worse,” she told me. “We’ve got to do something.”
Gently, I turned her toward this site. “You need to read Pregnancy Help News if you really want to know what’s going on out there,” I said. “You’ll find where we are getting attacked, but you’ll also see where we are winning. Almost every month it seems, there is a story on another abortion clinic closing—and a pregnancy center moving in.”
She nodded, somewhat hopeful. I closed the deal: “We’re winning. I’m telling you, it’s only a matter of time.”
My conversation with my friend was a reminder of our responsibility to... remind. Why? Because our supporters and so many who believe in life must see momentum is on our side. As Jay Hobbs pointed out earlier this week, the abortion industry holds onto anger as its weapon and, in my Southern voice, “it ain’t workin.”
What is working is love. What is working is the hope we offer. What is working is the joy we bring to every interaction with those we see.
Our friends need to know this. Too many times, we focus our communication on the horror of abortion, the latest abortion statistics, or the number of tax dollars flowing to Planned Parenthood. I get it; we shouldn’t hide these things.
But we don’t want to be like the Steely Dan song, “Deacon Blues,” where the artist admits that while there are winners all over the place, he is not one of them.
Let’s be confident. Let’s talk about successes. Let’s focus on the fact that every woman and man who comes in our door receives an incredible opportunity to make a courageous choice, bringing a new life into this world.
Tweet This: Let's be confident, let's talk about successes, let's focus on life. #prolife @KirkWalden
The Planned Parenthoods of this world see a new life as a burden to shoulder; we see new life as an opportunity to expand the wonder of humanity by one more. This new life, if nurtured well, may bring countless blessings to dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people. That’s good news.
As we share this good news, let’s do so in a winning way—because we are winning. Forty-three years after Roe, there are fewer abortion centers and more life-affirming ministries than we could have imagined in 1973. The abortion rate is dropping.
The challenge is, many pro-life friends are not getting the message. Like my friend above, they are bogged down by what they see on the news, by the constant barrage against the pro-life view throughout the mainstream media, and even by abortion statistics from Planned Parenthood.
My friend was bogged down by Planned Parenthood’s “growing” numbers. She couldn’t see the good news in those numbers, and there is good news.
Yes, Planned Parenthood performed 328,348 abortions last year, a slight 1.3 percent increase over the previous year.
But this is hardly bad news. The U.S. abortion rate keeps dropping, from a high of 29.3 abortions per thousand women in 1981 to 14.6 per thousand in 2014. Planned Parenthood is only reporting a larger piece of a shrinking market. It’s like being on the Titanic and saying, “With all these people jumping off the boat, I can find a deck chair more easily!”
Maybe it’s time we started acting like winners. Instead of whimpering about how much money Planned Parenthood receives from the federal government, let’s remind ourselves and others that we’re taking on a giant and cutting into its profits every day.
Our every communication must accentuate our good news; whether it is a life saved, a two-parent family built, a dad embracing his new role or a lowered abortion rate in our community. Let’s tell our friends. Then tell them again. And again.
When we do, confidence grows. When confidence grows, a winning culture results. And in a winning culture, victories become a way of life.
