CBR’s Lincoln Brandenburg at the Chattahoochee Valley March for Life

On January 25 our Georgia Project Director, Lincoln Brandenburg spoke at the 2013 Chattahoochee Valley March for Life in Columbus, GA, noting the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Hundreds attended, and we gave out 1,500 “Choice” cards, each of which features a graphic abortion photo.   A “Choice” cards in your wallet is an excellent tool for changing minds by simply showing people the truth!  The following are excerpts from his speech.

Forty years is a long time. Too long. And those of you who have given of your time and resources to save lives and to end the killing may be wondering, “Have we made progress?”

Many of you are familiar with the legendary human rights activist William Wilberforce who, in the early 1800’s, led the movement to abolish slavery in the United Kingdom. That campaign was an uphill battle. Slavery, like abortion, was as profitable and invisible as it was cruel and horrifying. But awareness was raised. Abolition bills were introduced, failed, and introduced again year after year. Incremental progress was made over the decades.

Finally, his old and broken body failing, Wilberforce received word that the votes and support were in place, and that legalized slavery in the British Empire would, at long last, come to an end. Three days after receiving this wonderful news, a tired Wilberforce went home to his Savior.

I’m telling you this story, pro-life friend, because it took Wilberforce and his team not forty, but nearly fifty years to accomplish justice. Fifty years of toil and labor, small victories, heavy defeats, and the ridicule of being misunderstood by friend and foe alike.

Though it has been a long journey for us also, we will not give up, because the lives of those precious little ones and the hearts of their mothers are worth fighting for! So stay in the fight, my friend.

I have one more story to tell. This is for friends who are pro-life, but not yet active in this work of saving lives.

In May 1940, German forces attacked Holland. The following years of occupation brought a gradual fulfillment of Nazi policies, resulting in the dehumanization of Jews. There were severe criminal penalties for any who would aid, abet, or harbor them. But that did not stop some. Casper ten Boom was an elderly watchmaker who, along with his two grown daughters, lived out their professed Christianity by risking their lives to hide Jews in their own home and guide them to safety.

A Jewish mother and her baby came to them for refuge. As they sought to find a safe place for them, the ten Booms asked a country pastor if he would take this family in.

Sadly, what this s0-called “minister” of the gospel gave them was not help, but cowardly excuses. “No. Definitely not. We could lose our lives for that Jewish child.”

Upon hearing that, Casper picked up the baby, holding him tenderly, and responded “You say we could lose our lives for this child? I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family.”

Eventually, the Germans found this family out. They were shipped to concentration camps, and Casper ten Boom, being sick and elderly, did indeed lose his life for saving the lives of others. But unlike that pastor, he stood before God as one who could give a good account of his stewardship during a dark time in history.

You and I are also living in a time in history during which innocent lives are being snuffed out. But we have it much easier. Unlike the ten Booms, we do not have to keep our efforts hidden. We still have the freedom to peacefully stand up for these children whom our government won’t protect. How much more readily should we do so, given the comparable ease of our task? Friends, change will not come about by us wishing it away. It will not come about by thinking pro-life thoughts. It will not come about by going to a march one day a year and then staying at home for all the rest.

In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”