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Over winter break, students from Patrick Henry College campaigned with Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. They traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina, and joined students from Hillsdale, Christendom, and other majority pro-life colleges to campaign with the largest pro-life canvassing organization in the United States.
“I had never done anything like that before. …I didn’t even know what canvassing was,” sophomore Susannah Ely said. The students walked door to door, sharing the gospel with residents, campaigning for legislation to protect mothers and their children and to promote unseating Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein.
Part of the campaign’s goals was “to gauge people's opinions on abortion,” sophomore Trevor Good said.
Senior Ethan LaBelle spoke with a pro-choice woman on the last day of the campaign. At first, she seemed hesitant to speak with him, but she was waiting for the rain to die down outside so she turned to him and asked, “Why do they have you out here?”
“This is an issue that is very important to me,” Labelle said. He took the opportunity to explain a Republican-sponsored bill that would give $126 million to single mothers but was vetoed by the Democratic governor. The woman paused. She pulled out her phone to call her husband. All three of them spoke together.
By the end of the conversation, both the woman and her husband told LaBelle they would consider voting Republican in the next election.
Sophomore Anika Bebb got to speak with a man who originally did not think he was allowed to have an opinion on pro-life issues “since he was a man.” Bebb got the opportunity to share with him that babies can feel pain and pull away from abortionist tools late into pregnancies. He was surprised to hear that. “He was very accepting of the information, and at the end, he said, ‘Thank you for enlightening me,’” Bebb said.
Ely spoke with a wide array of residents, some pro-life, some pro-choice, and some self-proclaimed “pro-life and pro-choice.” One woman told Ely, “I know it’s wrong, but I think a woman has a right to choose.”
Sophomore Andrea LaBelle spoke with a woman who knew that her pregnancy was potentially life-threatening but who chose to give birth anyway. LaBelle got to meet her now 27-year-old son later as he was on his way to work.
At one house, Ely was greeted at the door by a long-haired, tattooed man who believed in reincarnation and the sanctity of animal life. “I think it’s hypocritical that pro-lifers eat their hamburgers,” he told her. After hearing her share the Gospel, he told her, “I’ll look into Jesus if you look into veganism.”
The students were encouraged by the number of pro-life residents they met. “I knew beforehand there were people who voted pro-life, but seeing it for myself was really encouraging,” said sophomore Abigail Lee.
Ultimately, the students are hopeful that their efforts might help to make a change in North Carolina.
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Patrick Henry College exists to glorify God by challenging the status quo in higher education, lifting high both faith and reason within a rigorous academic environment; thereby preserving for posterity the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is the foundation of America.
