SPL Recap: Pro-Life Leaders Summit in AZ
Photo Credit Crystal Kupper
I have been a faithful Secular Pro-Life volunteer for years, regularly offering my writing, editing, and administration skills from afar. But on Saturday, November 9, I leveled up, presenting at the Arizona Life Coalition’s annual Pro-Life Leaders Summit in Phoenix.
ALC leaders had noticed both my frequent SPL-related posts online and the fact that I am an Arizona local. Would I be interested in speaking to about 55 pro-life leaders from around the state on the topic of what Secular Pro-Life is, they asked, and how they can best utilize it in their pro-life work? The middle child in me, always desperate for a microphone so that someone will notice my existence, immediately said yes. I love SPL and what it stands for — and probably owe a decent chunk of my pro-life success to them — so why would I not want to spread that love?
I polled the room at the beginning of my presentation, and every single one of them was religious, even though many work in the pro-life movement via secular or semi-secular spaces, like pregnancy resource centers. As a devout Christian myself, I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to bridge the two often-separate worlds of secular and sacred pro-lifers. And it was!
I walked the room through a PowerPoint presentation of what SPL does and is, including our (yes, I count myself as part of SPL, despite my deeply-rooted faith) big-tent approach. There are millions of secular pro-lifers out there, who already agree that abortion is a human rights violation, but so many of them don’t feel they have a pro-life “home.” They feel isolated and lonely in their beliefs and may even think that religious pro-lifers don’t want to partner with them (unfortunately, some know this from real-world experiences). This is one of the reasons SPL exists: to give a voice to those without faith who agree that unborn children are humans worthy of our protection.
And hopefully, those leaders at the Summit now know the beginning steps of how to incorporate those secular pro-lifers into their own pro-life work in Arizona. There are heaps of ways to include pro-lifers of all stripes into the movement, and everyone seemed very receptive to the overall concept.
Of course, given that Arizona voters had just passed Proposition 139 a few days earlier, enshrining the “right” to abortion until birth in our state constitution, the mood was noticeably somber and cautious. But given that I grew up in Oregon, the most abortion-friendly state in the nation with absolutely zero restrictions of any kind (heck, they’re even an “abortion tourism” destination now, barf!), I could speak to this topic, too. There are tough days ahead, especially for the unborn Arizonans with targets on their backs, but we won’t stop fighting. Ever.
And as I told attendees, faith-based pro-lifers need all the reinforcements we can get, including and especially secular pro-lifers, who can reach pro-choice people in ways and arenas that the former sometimes can’t.
It takes all of us, and I am excited to see how the pro-life organizations in Arizona let this truth seep into their missions.
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