A Chapter To-Do List

10 Things You Should Do This Fall To Help Save Lives

By Holly Miller
NRL Field Coordinator

Fall is usually a busy time for everybody because people are back from vacations, school is back in session, it is election season, and the holidays are fast approaching. Fall can be especially busy for pro-lifers because each of these events affords us opportunities to involve or educate more people on life issues.

More than opportunities to expand membership or raise some money, these are critical occasions that demand our service. Sitting this fall out will be the equivalent of standing by while real people die.

Normally, I do not resort to such dramatic language, and I assure you I am not doing so merely for effect. Through countless encounters with local chapters, I am convinced of what National Right to Life has long maintained, that grassroots pro- life activities are responsible for the success and growth of the right-to-life movement.

We need your conscientious and untiring efforts this fall to advance the lifesaving efforts on behalf of unborn babies, their mothers, the aging, and the medically vulnerable.

Here is a list of 10 things you should do this fall:

1. Collect Petition Signatures: The Ban on Partial-Birth Abortions has passed the House of Representatives and President Bush is waiting to sign it into law, but Majority Leader Tom Daschle is holding up the bill in the Senate. We'll be collecting petition signatures supporting the ban until the end of October, so please continue to have the petitions signed and return them to National Right to Life. To order free petitions, please call 202-626-8800, ext. 143. A copy of the petition can be found on pages 16-17 of this edition. (If you are not subscribing to NRL News or wish to give a gift subscription, please call 202-626- 8828.)

2. Activate Phone Trees: Senator Daschle and both your senators need to hear from your community that protecting partially born babies from being brutally killed during delivery is not a political or partisan issue, but a human rights issue. Use the names of petition signers and other lists of pro-life people to develop a phone tree, then activate it to generate as many phone calls as possible to Senator Daschle and your senators.

3. Write Letters to the Editor: This section of the paper is read regularly, so it affords you a great opportunity to educate your community. Write a letter updating the community on the progress of pro-life legislation and tell them how your congressman voted on the partial-birth abortion ban and the ban on human cloning. You can find details in the "Legislative Action Center" at www.nrlc.org. If an EMILY's List candidate is running for elective office in your area, write a letter explaining that EMILY's list only endorses Democratic women that support unrestricted access to abortion, including partial-birth abortions and tax-funded abortions.

4. Clip Newspapers: Most local campaign news does not make the big papers, making it difficult to keep track of what candidates are saying in local interviews, commercials, and debates. If your local newspaper mentions a statement or the position of a candidate for Congress regarding abortion or specific pro-life legislation, please send the whole article to my attention at National Right to Life, 512 10th St., NW, Washington, DC 20004.

5. Hold a General Meeting: While people are very busy in the fall, this is usually the time they are choosing their activities for the year. Holding an open meeting is a good way to draw in new members. Get members more involved with your chapter before they commit to other activities by giving them projects to help with right away.

6. Host a Candidate Forum: Chapters cannot endorse candidates and are non-partisan. A good way to be civic-minded is to host a candidate forum to which all candidates for an office are invited to attend and answer questions from the audience. The forum should be open to the public, and pro-life churches are good places to advertise to assure a good turnout. Since your chapter sponsors the event, feel free to ask the first few questions of the candidates to have their positions on the life issues stated publicly.

7. Register Voters: Another civic-minded and important activity is to help register people to vote. If your state allows for it, have voter registration cards available at every booth and with every petition for which you solicit signatures.

8. Recruit Volunteers: National Right to Life and your state office almost always need volunteers in the fall, so formulate a current list of individuals and families willing to assist in these efforts. Contact your state office for more information.

9. Respect Life Month: October is Respect Life Month in many churches. Your chapter can seek opportunities to provide materials and speakers for Respect Life Activities.

10. Organize an Operation Baby Bottle: October and January are ideal months to send church members home with empty baby bottles to fill with spare change throughout the month. A month later, they return the full bottles and the chapter will have generated enough funds for one or several projects. Be sureto "recycle" the bottles by distributing them to another pro-life church's members to fill the bottles for you the next month. There you have it: 10 do-able things to do this fall. Some are easier than others, some require more planning or more volunteers than others, some you are hopefully already doing, but they are all important ways to effectively advance the pro- life cause at the local, state, and federal levels.

Please feel free to call me at 202-626-8809 or send an e-mail to chapters@nrlc.org for more information or further details on any of the above items.

Your best bet is to divvy up the responsibilities and dive in. Your state office and National Right to Life are here to help and you can hopefully take heart in the fact that, in 3,000 communities like yours throughout the country, grassroots pro-lifers are experiencing similar challenges and rewards as you. Together, we have come a long way, and together we will ultimately prevail. Here's to a busy, productive, and rewarding fall!