By: Canon Georgette Forney, President, AFL
Last summer, as we began preparing for Life SUMMIT 2024, I had a conversation with Bp. Chris Warner, the new bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic, which co-sponsors the SUMMIT with us. Bp. Chris asked me where I thought the pro-life movement was going now that Roe was overturned. When I replied that more ministry was needed for abortion-minded women now unable to access abortion, I sensed he was asking a bigger question, as he kept emphasizing, “What’s next? What do we do in this new season of abortion by state?”
That question—what’s next?—became like a little pebble in my shoe; I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I started asking the Lord to help me see the answer—what is next?
I was home sick with COVID a few weeks later, feeling good but quarantined. I got out a notepad, and I started writing down thoughts that were popping into my head as potential answers to the “what’s next?” question. I was trying to think outside the box about abortion and realized that fighting abortion had become a long game, requiring different offensive and defensive strategies.
Additionally, we needed to come up with action ideas that everybody could do and would complement people’s God-given gifts and talents. We can’t ask people to do things that aren’t natural for them. For example, I can’t ask people to go out and march, if public advocacy makes them uncomfortable. They wouldn’t last at it!
So, what is God calling all of us to do to protect life and discourage abortion? Well, what is the most natural thing we do every day? We talk to one another; we communicate with each other about what is important to us. And while Roe has been overturned, it has not stopped abortion, nor have the number of abortions been greatly reduced, so our goal to end abortion, making it unthinkable and unnecessary, must continue.
And because the mainstream media only reports abortion news based on the narrative provided to them by the abortion industry, we must take up the role of educating our communities about abortion. We must counter the misinformation being propagated with the truth about life. We must become educators for life, doing what we do naturally every day – talking to one another!
Education is critical, but it is almost impossible to become an expert on all of the abortion related topics that exist. So,
Anglicans For Life has created a simple plan to help you, and it is called Speak Up for Life.
We identified nine different abortion related topics:
- Abortion Pills
- Humanity of the Baby
- Spiritual Truth
- Motherhood
- Fatherhood
- Abortion Details
- Abortion’s Other Victims
- Legislation and Policy
- Abortion Consequences
We created a strategy for each one, directed towards ending abortion through public education. For each topic, we created three to five tactics to choose from, which are basically talking points that you can share with friends or complete strangers! Each topic has a webpage that provides articles, data, quotes, and additional resources, so that you can read and dig deeper into the different topics. This is all designed so you can become an expert on one particular point about abortion and educate everyone you know about it. We have put it in booklet form, and it is also available on AFL’s website.
This is the key point: You don’t have to know everything in the whole booklet. Just focus on memorizing one talking point on one subject. Become an expert on that one point. And then, every morning when you wake up, say, “Lord, please put somebody in my path with whom I can share my talking point.” Now, just imagine if everyone reading this did that, and we each just started going out and dropping seeds of truth. While the mainstream media continues to be the mouthpiece for the abortion industry, we can speak up for life, truth, and God.
To request a copy of the booklet, click here.
