Action in the face of apathy

Earlier this spring, the Students for Life club I’m involved in took to recruiting students on campus. Standing in front of our student center, the task was simple: ask students walking by if you can ask them a question. If they oblige, ask them if they are pro-life. If they say yes, ask them if they would be interested in signing up for the club’s email list.

Initially, I was nervous because my campus tends to be more hostile to conservative principles, but surprisingly, we had more students identify as pro-life than pro-abortion. Our problem therein lay in convincing those who were pro-life to sign up for our club. There wasn’t much interest, and as our Students for Life regional coordinator, Angela, kept saying: we have a very apathetic campus.

Apathy: the definition of which is the lack of interest or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.

None of the new recruits from that endeavor have attended any of our meetings. Now, I understand that this is college and everyone has a million different things going on – I really do. But being pro-life has to be more than just a label you give yourself—otherwise it’s useless.

Author David Northrup, in a book titled “The Atlantic Slave Trade,” shares a quote from a debate on the slave trade, in response to brutal descriptions of the trade:

True humanity consists not in…starting or shrinking at such tales as these, but in a disposition of heart to relieve misery. True humanity appertains rather to the mind than to the nerves, and prompts men to use real and active endeavors to execute the actions which it suggests.

True humanity appertains rather to the mind than to the nerves. Abortion cannot just make us sad. It is not enough for us to let its horrors just simply shock us. It does not matter if you cry while viewing a graphic image of a preborn child if your tears do not lead you to action. It does not matter if you cringe while reading about Kermit Gosnell, or you get nauseous while hearing about how abortion procedures are performed, if it does not lead you to action.

As President Obama said while addressing our nation after the Sandy Hook tragedy:

…no set of laws can eliminate evil in from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that cannot be an excuse for inaction.

We must be champions for the pro-life movement. We cannot afford to remain apathetic. We must listen adeptly to our minds and let them lead us to action against injustice. Let us not exhaust our tears needlessly, but let our cries be heard so that one day, all children’s cries might be heard.