By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
Lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness has taken on a whole new and exciting meaning in our current age of social media.
Rather than condemn biased news media coverage of a pro-life candidate, you can take to your Facebook page and post a link to an informative piece at www.nationalighttolifenews.org or www.nrlc.org which lay out the differences between the pro-life and pro-abortion candidates on the life issues.
Instead of grumbling about a television commentator who praises Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion operation, you can log on to Twitter to tweet out statistics showing that the abortion giant took the lives of 354,871children in 2018-19, an increase of nearly 9,200 from the number of abortions in performed the year before.
Upset that cable television networks ignore the authentic “reality show” of an unborn child’s development? Go to the NRLC account on Pinterest and save the images from Rose’s First Photo Album, a fantastic educational resource which shows the stunning images and milestones of a preborn child’s development. Then encourage your fellow Pinterest enthusiasts to follow your board…in other words—spread the love—and the information!
A teenage family member of mine recently opened an Instagram account. I was pleasantly surprised when she clicked the “heart” button underneath a photo of me with a fashionably red “Stop Abortion Now!” sign, which I had posted earlier in the day.
I was even more surprised by the motto she had typed beneath the picture of herself and her dog which serves as her “profile” picture. The motto reads, “Because life is worth living no matter what, even in a desert or under a bridge.” She is sending out a pro-life message every time her 164 followers access her Instagram feed.
Social media has opened a world of possibility when it comes to promoting the pro-life message. You can post everything from Ultrasound pictures to March for Life video…from songs with a life-affirming message to YouTube videos showing the drive and determination of Special Olympians.
Not only can you influence your friends and family members with your pro-life posts, you can also have an impact on your elected officials. A Pennsylvania state lawmaker once responded enthusiastically to my Twitter post about a woman who had saved a number of preborn lives with her sign offering to adopt children in danger of being aborted. Perhaps that legislator may, in fact, remember that post, the next time pro-life legislation is up for a vote in the General Assembly.
Yes, reading the newspaper, watching television news shows, and scrolling through news websites can be downright depressing these days. But pro-life people are a people of hope and, through social media, we can communicate as never before the truths about human development, the preciousness of the gift of life, and the triumphant stories of women who have chosen life for their preborn babies and been incredibly blessed as a result.
Through the stories and images that inspire us, we can encourage any one of our Facebook friends, along with our followers on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, to brighten social media with the encouraging message that life is good and should be protected, treasured, and celebrated!