By Matt Hadro
Washington D.C., Jan 27, 2015 / 04:39 am
Victory is in sight for the pro-life movement, as technology and rhetoric witness to the cause of life, Princeton professor Robert George told an audience of high school and college pro-life activists Jan. 23.
"On the fundamental question of whether abortion is good or bad, liberation or killing, the argument has been won," said George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University.
An estimated 2,300 high school and college students and chaperones from as far away as North Dakota and Nebraska attended the Students for Life East Coast Conference just outside of Washington, D.C.
The gathering followed the annual March for Life, which was attended by over 200,000, according to one estimate.
Drawing an analogy between the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the present-day pro-life movement, George invoked Dr. Martin Luther King who, on the night before he was assassinated, predicted victory for the movement. "I've been to the mountaintop and I've seen the Promised Land," George quoted King.
"I feel in my own way," he added, "I've been to the mountaintop."
The reason for optimism in the pro-life movement, George said, is its "victory in the realm of ideas." For instance, he pointed to name-change of NARAL Pro-Choice America. While the group used to have "abortion rights" in its name, the reference to abortion has now been removed.
Abortion "was once a great cause for them," the professor said, but "now they have to hide it." This is because "the public is not with them, not on the argument."
The emergence of technology has also been key for the pro-life movement, he added, noting the proliferation of ultrasound machines that show an infant in the womb.
"You cannot sustain an argument for abortion over the long term with that reality starting you in the face," he said, emphasizing that while legal abortion remains, "we have won the argument."
Many of the college leaders who attended the March for Life and surrounding events said they found hope and inspiration from the massive crowds of pro-life youth.
"If you're coming here, I feel like you're actually standing up for something against opposition," said Megan Kangiser of Creighton University, a Jesuit university in Omaha, Nebraska.
"I felt the presence of God in all of us," said Kenny Mizingo from the University of Central Florida.
Mizingo, originally from Angola, is involved in the local Catholic Campus Ministry and traveled with the pro-life chair of the ministry.
"Thousands of people just praying, making noise for God, was life-changing for me and it gave me more motivation, more strength," he said.
Although the university has a huge enrollment, the pro-life group is quite small, about 10 members. They pray the rosary every Saturday at 7 a.m. outside the local abortion clinic, and this is "challenging," Mizingo admitted, particularly when the abortion doctors or clients walk past them into the clinic without acknowledging their presence.
But despite temptations to despair, he said, "it's not about me, it's not about them, it's about God. God is the reality, God is the way."
"God touches my heart and my mind, gives me more strength and motivation, to keep praying for those babies, to keep preaching to those people, especially the doctor that goes to that clinic. Every Saturday, I have a special encounter with God."
