We have a tremendous opportunity to actively build the future of our culture, starting with our kids.
We have a tremendous opportunity to actively build the future of our culture, starting with our kids.
W hen I reflect back on the past year, one story keeps coming to mind. It’s not a cultural trend or a court case, but rather a very personal, hidden story that for all I know speaks to so many other hidden stories like it.
One of the most radiant, joyful people I know chose life against the odds when she was just 15 years old; she told her story on social media only this year. This woman, Veronica Keene, is one of untold numbers of women who chose life against the advice of most who knew her well enough to offer it.
“I kept my baby,” she begins. “Even when everyone told me ‘kids shouldn’t have kids’ or that I’d ‘ruin my life,’ I kept my baby. I knew that people would talk and shake their heads but I still kept my baby. I knew there was a pill that could ‘take it all away.’
“But I knew that wasn’t true,” she continues, “so I kept my baby. And because I kept my baby, it’s assumed I hate everyone who made a different choice. I don’t. I love them, but hoped that they would’ve kept their baby. And I know how scared they were because I was, too. I know how these girls (and myself) were misinformed when we were told it’s impossible. It’s not.”
When I look at her life — and at her children, her grandchildren, and her happy 34-year marriage — I wonder how many women would have chosen life if they’d felt strong enough to reject all of the voices telling them not to.
I look at my own children and hope that I’m doing everything I can to equip them for their own futures. My children, our children, will be the next generation of parents. Claiming a pro-life victory in our culture begins in our own homes.
We have a tremendous opportunity within the pro-life movement to actively build the future of our culture, starting with our kids. We could see them carry pro-life, pro-family outcomes and attitudes into every sphere of society, everywhere they go.
So challenge your young men. Encourage them to become responsible, loving men who will respect, honor, and take care of the women in their lives. Model strength and grace for them. Show up for them every day. Give them the love and guidance they need to help build healthy, supportive relationships as adults.
Set your daughters’ standards high, too. Make sure they know they can come to you for advice and support when or if they make destructive decisions. Make sure they know they are worthy of respect, deserving of love.
Set the right example for your children. Make sure your home and life are equipping them correctly to confront hard choices well. Speak to them honestly and openly about sex, about marriage, about their own worth and about the decisions their peers will probably face.
Because, unfortunately, the voices telling young men and women not to choose life are growing.
The pro-life movement has had legislative and cultural successes and challenges in the past year. A number of state-level initiatives to advance abortion have succeeded, though thankfully we started seeing a few others fail. Abortion extremism certainly doesn’t seem to be a winning issue for pro-abortion advocates — but much more work needs to be done to change hearts and minds for life.
Veronica was urged from every side to abort her child. The story hasn’t changed much since then — but it doesn’t have to stay the same. It can change with us. We can make sure that fewer women every year face unexpected pregnancies alone, frightened, and misinformed.
We must and can be people of hope. We must and can be people of endurance, of goodness, of life.
We must and we can, because our children’s lives depend on it — and so do their children’s.