Lesson from a Birmingham Jail

It comes to this. We return to a civil rights era. Martin Luther King, Jr. effectively led a movement of peaceful protest that resulted directly in the realization of equal rights for blacks in the US. Modeling their group and tactics off of King's civil rights movement, nine members of the Pro-life Survivors Campus Life Tour (SCL) were roughly arrest and held without water or phone call (or reason) for exercising their right to peaceful protest on public property in the very place from which King was arrested and wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

The group was surrounded and threatened by police to leave the spot where they were handing out literature and promoting dialogue with those interested in speaking while passing by. When the police showed up, SCL quickly contact their attorney who checked their location and the city ordinances, noting that they were perfectly within their legal rights. The police proceeded to arrest, without cause, the nine. SCL members were video taping their efforts, but their camera was confiscated. An 18-year-old member was handcuffed so tightly that it cut into her wrists making her bleed. When she begged, crying, that they loosen the cuffs, the police denied her request. Another, a clergy-man, was shackled around the ankles. The arrested nine were released the next morning without citations.

It was revealed that several of the cops making the arrests without legal reason work as night security in a local abortion facility.

Lifesitenews.com quoted the founder of SCL, Rev. Jeff White: "It is ironic that young people participating in a project named after Dr. King's letter sit in the very jail he penned it from. Ironic and sad. ... Throughout their entire ordeal, these youths' first and foremost concern was to draw attention to the ultimate civil rights abuse - the murder of pre-born children."

In the past 36 years, since the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade, America has been in the midst of a culture war. However, this incident seems to recall the times of the civil rights era in a way that someone of my age and place would have never experienced. This is perhaps also the sort of events that happened earlier in the wake of Roe v. Wade, and it is rather disheartening to see such recently emboldened opposition.

These events only highlight that abortion is truly the civil rights issue of our day. We are talking about a human being. If we recognize (as the congress of the state of North Dakota is doing as we speak) that scientifically from the moment of conception there is a distinct and individual human life, there should be no question that an abortion at any stage and any type, is a grave occurrence.

There is more ignorance on the issue than abortion advocates would allow us to think. When last week a woman who was looking to have an abortion delivered a live baby very prematurely. She spoke out saying she thought so early in the pregnancy it would look like a blob. Imagine her shock when she gave birth to a REAL baby!

Let us continue to work for educating the public on the issue, that we may come to truly understand what is at stake in every abortion... and every choice.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” (Excerpt, Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail")