By Ann Cowan
There comes a time when one must stand up for justice. There comes a time when one must make a statement, make people open their eyes to what is happening right in front of them. These times have come often throughout history.
It happened with the civil rights movement, when Martin Luther King Jr. held peaceful protests against the mistreatment of African Americans. It happened with the women's rights movement when woman like Susan B. Anthony dared to demand the right to vote.
It happened last week when 300 white crosses were placed in the ground out of respect for the 49 million children who have died in America due to a decision made on Jan. 22, 1973.
You are probably shocked. You have not read about the deaths in the newspaper or heard it on the evening news. That's because the 49 million that have died are not granted the status of human beings.
Just as, at some point in history African Americans and women were not seen as human beings, today the unborn are banned from receiving a human identity.
However, the unborn are living human beings because, according to science, a unique human life is formed at conception that not only has its own set of forty-six chromosomes, but is growing!
According to Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Willke, the heart of the unborn begins to beat at about eighteen days and they can move during the sixth to seventh week (AbortionFacts.com).
Unfortunately, just as Caucasians claimed their rights over African Americans and men claimed their rights over women, today Americans claim that we have the right to kill the unborn. This is a tragedy.
The little white crosses not only remember the lives lost to abortion but also the men and women hurt by abortion.
Many men and women have bought into the lie about the inhumanity of their unborn child. Many men and women were pressured by family, friends and society. Many men and women felt as though they had no way out of their situations except through abortion.
Many men and women regret having abortions.
For those men and women, the crosses were up out of acknowledgement and respect of their heartache.
Ultimately, the 300 little white crosses memorialize one fateful day in history, Roe v. Wade, the beginning of the holocaust of millions of unborn children and the heart ache of many men and women.
Ann Cowan is a sophomore nursing major and the student leader for Voices for Life
