"Did you make a difference?"
Inside: imminent NH Senate vote on pregnancy resource center bill; running (and praying) for office; CPR challenge; I'm handed a tough question.
This edition of Braided Trails is like a potluck supper organized at the last minute, as current events make a hash of what had been a nice organized draft. What’s left is united by an idea I hadn’t even aimed at, which is what happens sometimes. Making a difference: let’s get started.
The paywall will return in the next edition - and remember that I welcome free and paid subscribers. Please share Braided Trails with someone who might enjoy it.
Update on NH pregnancy resource center bill: contact your senator; vote may come May 14
For my New Hampshire readers who have been following the progress of HB 1416, a bill to support pregnancy resource centers in their abortion-free mission, it’s time to contact your state senator. The bill is likely to be voted on in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, May 12, and then voted on by the full Senate on Thursday, May 14. Yes, that’s fast action, but the end of the legislative session is looming, and they’re working on a deadline.
You can look up your NH state senator’s contact information at gc.nh.gov/senate/members and ask for support for HB 1416. The bill’s text is available on the legislative website.
By the way - do you belong in office?
Yes, you. Doesn’t matter where you live. Are you being called to public service?
The filing period this year for New Hampshire state and county offices is June 3-12. That’s the time to file for candidacy for the September primary and November general election. More info is at the Secretary of State’s website.
Not everyone is inclined to run for public office, but if the notion has ever occurred to you, begin discerning whether to proceed. Every town and state offers opportunities for public service in elective and appointed positions. Perhaps it’s your turn, even if you think that’s a stretch.
Lenette Peterson, a friend and former neighbor, served a couple of terms in the state legislature. I asked her when she stepped down what she’d tell someone interested in serving. “I’d encourage anyone to run. The experience was phenomenal.”
Even if running for office is not for you, you can pray for good people to meet that challenge. That’s how Lenette was roped in. A state rep was retiring, and Lenette walked straight into trouble by asking her, “So if you’re not running, who is?” The legislator replied, “Well, I’m praying about you running.” “Are you nuts?” “At least pray about it.”
That worked out pretty well for everyone involved, including her district’s constituents.
Win of the week
The first ladyslipper of the season makes me feel like a lottery winner, and I hit the jackpot on Mother’s Day afternoon as I walked through a nearby conservation area looking for spring things. Voilà. Another week or two and I’ll see lots more. And yes, I probably say the same thing every spring, but I LOVE these wild orchids.
CPR challenge: are you trained?
While out on a run a few months ago, New Hampshire Executive Councilor John Stephen suddenly collapsed and went into cardiac arrest. Two bystanders took action immediately, calling 911 and beginning CPR. Stephen survived, recovered, and is back at work with a challenge for his colleagues: who can get the most neighbors to sign up for a hands-free CPR course?
It’s a fun effort with a serious purpose. Stephen has been outspoken about the quick action by people he didn’t even know, whose CPR training gave them the know-how that saved Stephen’s life. He wants more of us to be ready when we’re faced with such a crisis.
The NH CPR Challenge seeks to get 1000 Granite Staters to sign up for hands-only CPR training (no mouth-to-mouth required) during EMS Week, May 16-23. I’m in.
This isn’t the only time, place, or technique for CPR. You can find training in your own area, perhaps even through your own place of employment or a community group. Any agency that provides first aid training will be able to guide you to CPR training.
I love how Councilor Stephen is making the most of his recovery. Let’s rise to his challenge.
“What difference did you make?”
As I met my lunch-table companions at a recent Catholic literature conference, we exchanged brief introductions including what kind of work we did. I said I had been a pro-life lobbyist at the State House. The polite young woman next to me asked “did you make a difference?”
She was simply trying to make conversation, I think. Her question brought me up short. She had hit on something that haunts me.
A few decades’ worth of hearings, torrents of words, countless op-eds and speaking engagements, amounting to what? I want to be able to point to one thing and say “I did that.”
Never happened. The biggest political victory in my neck of the woods, passage of a fetal homicide law, was one in which I played only a small part. The families who testified about their lost children were the ones who made that happen. (I wrote about them in my book Pro-Life Journeys.) My own writing about fetal homicide didn’t sway a single vote that I know of, while personal stories softened hearts.
Six months after I retired from active lobbying, my state passed a 24-week abortion limitation. There was no broad pro-life environment in which it could set strong roots, and less than a year later, the law was amended to permit eugenic abortion at any stage of pregnancy. Just this year, we got an abortion statistics law, after numerous failed attempts, but now the prevalence of chemical abortion without prescription undermines any collected data. We have no statute protecting the conscience rights of medical professionals. A very broad coalition has beaten back attempts to pass an assisted suicide law, but proponents of the policy keep coming back.
So did I make a difference?
I know that it’s in God’s hands, that all victories for life are His, and that all things work to the good for those who love Him. But still…I’d love to have left something lasting up there in the statute books
Politics - and keep in mind that I have loved it - is all about the next bill, the next election, the next ad, the next news cycle. That is probably the most toxic soil in which to cultivate pro-life policy. The odd fruit pops up, but the soil can’t sustain it. The roots aren’t deep enough. If they were, we wouldn’t be having these fights over and over again.
The difference I wanted to make thirty years ago was illusory. If someone had warned me about that, I wouldn’t have believed her. I had to live it to know it.
Did I make a difference? Not in the way I wanted, which was politically. My lunch companion’s polite question led me to that uncomfortable truth.
Where did I make a difference, in my pro-life work? Only God knows, literally. I am learning, though, that the relationships I’ve made that don’t involve elections and hearings are the ones that are proving most durable. Maybe writing about those people is where the difference lies.
I headed to a pregnancy resource center to learn about a new piece of equipment they had, and learned instead about the women who helped set up parenting classes in a region where there was high demand but few resources. That was a story worth telling.
I’ve visited a home for pregnant and parenting women who would otherwise have nowhere to go, and I’ve listened to the women who spent years getting the home established. I’ve listened to a group of women in another city who opened such a home and then had to close it down for lack of resources, yet they’re still finding ways to meet their neighbors’ needs. Those stories need to be told, too.
My only answer to my lunch companion was “I don’t know. I’ve done my best.”
Maybe my best lies ahead, in writing about the people whose mission and work advance the dignity of human life every day.
Next time: an update on my cross-state walk. Six towns down, many to go!