Not So Different After All?

It's usually a pretty interesting conversation starter when someone asks us what we do in NYC. I'm not sure anyone has ever expected the answer we give them. Some people get confused, others quiet, others excited. Most people have never heard of work like this before, or at least not largely staffed by a small band of young, long-term "interns".

As we know, the subject of abortion is usually polarizing. So, while a large portion of our society is relativistic and tries to politely not step on your toes, even when they think you are dead wrong, we still get a lot of cautiously suspicious and even quietly hostile responses. People may consider themselves too accepting to argue with you about your beliefs, but you can still tell when you are being scratched off someone's credibility list when you staunchly support something they consider ridiculous.

Some of the common reactions are a careful 'That's interesting..." followed by a "So, you are trying to convince the women to keep their babies?". To which we always have to clarify that we are primarily trying to educate and the education "persuades", if you will, by itself. Once you know what abortion is, you can hardly in your right mind support it; and once the women know what abortion is, they often realize they are in for a whole lot more than they were led to believe.

So, we absolutely believe an abortion isn't going to help any woman, any day. The wary listeners who are worried about our work often need to defend their position with "But it's really the woman's choice, in the end..." to which I can wholly agree; there is really no doubting that. That seems to surprise them. Maybe, if they were as informed as we are on what abortion is and seen all the girls in person affected by it as we have, they would realize that in their heart they do not believe something so different from us after all.