At present, the battle front on abortion is not the Supreme Court or the White House. The legal battle on abortion should be directed at our Senators and U.S. Congressmen, as well as our state representatives. It is state representatives that will largely determine the abortion policies of your state, at least for the moment. What can you do to influence them toward a pro-life position?
One of the reasons I wrote Why Pro-Life? was to make a person-to-person impact. I wrote it to communicate not only to Christians, and not only to pro-lifers, but to a secular audience with pro-choice leanings.
Many people have written and said they have given it to people who are mildly or adamantly pro-choice. One pro-choice advocate who has marched for abortion rights in Washington DC wrote and said it dealt with the issues fairly. Several businessmen have ordered hundreds of copies and have been giving out the book to non-Christians with positive results.
Here are two things you might consider doing:
First, get copies of the book, and personally send them to your representatives with a cover letter asking them to read it with an open mind. For many of them it will be the first time they have ever really heard the pro-life position—what they have heard is only the pro-abortion caricature of the pro-life position. Once the book is in an office, it may come into the hands of aids and staffers of strategic influence.
But don't just send it to pro-choicers. Send them to your pro-life representatives for two reasons: 1) to solidify their pro-life commitment and give them substantial reasons that will help them hold to it in the face of political pressures. 2) to equip them to communicate their beliefs to others, including the media and their political colleagues. They may be encouraged to actually pass the book on, or photocopy a few pages, or incorporate arguments and facts to use in their own communication.
Or, if you would prefer, for a $5 gift to Eternal Perspective Ministries, we will send a copy of the book to a U.S. senator or congressman with our own cover letter. If you wish, you can designate a specific name of such a representative, and provided we have not already sent one to that person, we will do so. (If we have, we'll choose another.) Or, if you prefer, you can leave it to us, and we'll systematically go down the list of our representatives in Washington, DC. If we ever make it through that list, we'll send them to state representatives and federal and state judges from the top down.
For $5 each, you can have one, ten or a hundred copies sent to our nation's key leaders. (Remember also that the book contains a clear gospel message in Chapter 18.)
Of course, there are other movers and shakers that need to hear the message. Why not send them to journalists, doctors, teachers and other instrumental persons in our communities? If you buy 100 copies or more, you may obtain the book from EPM at a substantial discount of $1.00 a copy.
(Slightly revised October 2008): An earlier version of this article appeared in the Dec. 92-Jan. 93 issue of Eternal Perspectives.
