Pro-Life Students Take Vow of Silence
Walking to class with red tape across her lips last year, college student Betsy Joy was approached by a fellow student who asked what she was doing. She gave him literature describing her participation in the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity. He confided to her that his girlfriend had recently had an abortion.
“I told him where he could go to find healing,” says Joy, a resident of Lansing, Mich. “It was a very powerful experience.”
Young people across the country on Tuesday, in more than 1,000 schools and ministries, will take part in the Day of Silent Solidarity, which was founded in 2004 by Bryan Kemper, the founder of Stand True Pro-Life Outreach and the Youth Outreach Director for Priests for Life.
“Sometimes silence is the most powerful statement,” says Kemper. “As pro-lifers, we try to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, but once a year, we join our silence to their silent suffering. It’s not too late to join us.”
The Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity is a project of Stand True, the youth outreach of Priests for Life, and is co-sponsored by LifeNews.com, Students for Life of America and Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust.
Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, challenged people of all ages to get involved with the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity: “Are you willing to give up your voice for a day for those who will never have a voice?'” he asked. “Can you do it for the least of our brothers and sisters?”
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is offering free legal assistance to public school students who participate in the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity if their First Amendment freedoms aren’t respected.
“Public schools should encourage, not shut down, the free exchange of ideas,” says ADF Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “Alliance Defending Freedom has more than 2,200 allied attorneys nationwide who are ready to defend any students participating in this event who have their constitutionally protected rights violated on campus. Under the First Amendment, these students are free to express their views on abortion just as other students have the freedom to express their views on the same and other topics.”
