Pro-Life on Campus and My Son

One of my favorite times of day is when John gets home from school and he tells me about his day. I know. We all love that moment, but this kid is extra interesting because he thinks so much, he observes, and he's pretty darn hilarious. He tells his stories with such energy and I find myself laughing constantly. I love his unique observations. From what happens in the classroom to learning theories to current events to his own response to things, his stories both amuse and impress me.


On Monday the campus had some sort of stump speech by the Right to Lifers. John was nursing the beginnings of a head cold so he was lying in the sun in the quad, giving him an interesting vantage point on the speeches going on. When he joined the audience from a closer range, John told himself I don't know much about this; I'm going to really pay attention and learn something.  He observed the rhetoric and the barbaric tools the RtoLers showed their audience and he was quite shocked by what they were claiming. He was upset and bothered by the things that they claimed about abortion and he felt the need to educate himself on the issue.

He went back to his little place in the grass and started researching the claims that were being made as well as information essential to understanding the divide in points of view regarding abortion. As you can imagine, his research revealed quite a different reality that what the speakers were saying. He continued his reading on into the day and later that night.

TEN MINUTES, he said, only ten minutes of reading and I was already seeing the significant fallacies in what the speakers were saying, how they were trying to get people emotional and upset instead of informing them.

He told me about a conversation he had that day with three young women at the rally, all of them Right to Lifers. John was confused by their apparent comfort with having the government tell them how they can and cannot operate within their own bodies. He told me that when he say to them It's your body! Why would you want the government tell you what you can and cannot do?  The young women all claimed that they would not change their minds. He was flabbergasted. His word. 


Today he's revealing his growing passion to represent the Choice people. He's been talking about it constantly and doing lots more reading and researching on his own on both sides of the argument in a highly ethical way. He's now kicking around the idea of starting a Pro-Choice group on campus!

My point?
I am so proud of him for his willingness to entertain ideas that appall him, confuse him, that he disagrees with so vehemently. It shows a real sense of integrity to find out for himself, doesn't it? His energy at the moment makes me feel such tremendous love and pride and amazement with the human being that he is... 

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