As soon as we set up, two women approached, fascinated by the preborn baby models

As soon as we set up our pro-life table on the streets of Dublin last weekend, we had two women approaching us, fascinated by the baby models. They reached out and examined them carefully when one of the women spoke out saying that hearing her child’s heartbeat in the womb was what saved them. 

The woman explained that she couldn’t go through with the abortion after hearing her little one’s heart, loud and clear. She changed her mind about the abortion and couldn’t go through with it. What a beautiful story. 

Last Saturday was a day where children also eagerly came up to the table fascinated by the models, mesmerized that they once were that small as well. As a group of young girls came by they shouted “I love abortion!” but as one of our members pointed out, they can love that now, because they were not aborted. They have a chance to breathe, smile, laugh or to shout because they had the chance of a life and nobody took that away from them. 

After a while, a man approached the table and asked “I have a question for you, if you’d have the choice whether to abort the baby inside of the womb or let them be born into an orphanage, where they’re unwanted and abused, which one would you choose?” It was a challenging question, one that is posed more often than you might imagine. I have to say I was bracing myself for a hostile reaction when I explained that we can’t judge the value of another’s person’s life  and that “nobody should have the choice to make the decision of killing an innocent baby”. 

The man looked at me, listening carefully as I explained, and to my surprise, he agreed with me. He said he once was that child, put in an orphanage, abused and - he felt - discarded by society. But his life had value. It still does. It was a very meaningful and powerful interaction. 

Pro-abortion people a lot of the time arguing that poverty, abuse and other unfortunate circumstances should be the reasons for legal abortion. Clarifying that statement and getting in depth to it - they believe that one should have that choice in killing an innocent child because their life wouldn’t be perfect. It’s a really sad and disturbing argument, but it’s the reality of the pro abortion logic. But the truth is that nobody should be able to make the decision to determine whether that child gets to live or die due to poverty and other circumstances. 

Another striking conversation was with a young man who was surprised to hear that research shows that the heartbeat of a baby starts as early as 16 days not at 6 weeks. As his girlfriend got back from a shop a few minutes into the conversation, she seemed shocked to hear that if they would have a baby together with a disability, he would make her abort it. In his own words he said “I would kill my own child”, recognising the humanity of the baby but saying that he would be doing that child a favor. We discussed the issue for some time - and I feel sure they may have continued the conversation themselves afterwards. The woman seemed unhappy with her boyfriend’s strong position, to say the least. Despite everything, they recognised the humanity of the baby and softened their approach towards abortion. I pray that the in-depth conversation we had, will leave them reconsidering their stance on abortion. Woman should be able to expect that a man will support her and her child no matter what circumstances. 

It was a very fruitful day of many conversations and a lot of supporters from the pro-life side that were so happy to see young people out on the streets of Dublin, giving a voice to the voiceless. 

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Sandra Parda

   

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