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TRUTH TOUR PACKS TOUGH MESSAGE

One-half hour into the Face the Truth Tour stop at Harbor Place in downtown Baltimore, an African-American girl about 16 years of age walked up to demonstrator Meghan Beller.

She had just come from Planned Parenthood headquarters on Howard Street, a few blocks away, where she had made an appointment for an abortion.

“But she saw our signs, and wanted to keep her baby,” said Tour Co-director Chrissie Walsh.

Chrissie gave her the phone number of a local crisis pregnancy center, and her own phone number, in case the girl needed more help.

“If saving that baby had been the only thing to come of the tour, everything would have been worth it,” Chrissie reflected.

For five days, from July 17-21, at 15 stops in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., pro-lifers lined streets and highways with large, graphic posters of aborted babies, exposing the ugly reality of abortion that has been suppressed by the mainstream media.

The number of pro-lifers at each stop ranged from 25 or 30 to 50 at Hagerstown and 80 at Frederick.

Best and youngest

 This year’s tour, the sixth consecutive Face the Truth Tour sponsored by Defend Life, was “the best tour we ever had!” declared Defend Life Director Jack Ames.

He credited its success in great part to the core team, pro-lifers who stayed with the tour for most or all of the stops.

“It never numbered less than 20 persons.  It was the best core team, the youngest, and the most enthusiastic,” said Ames.

Fourteen members of the core group were either college students or recent college graduates.  Five of them, including Chrissie, were 2006 graduates from Christendom College.

Chrissie’s two younger sisters, Beth and Joan, also took part.

“Having so many young people really helped,” Chrissie agreed.

“It gave people cause for thought, because this is the generation that has been so intimately affected by abortion.

“Young people are predominantly pro-life, and the tour made their convictions visible – passersby could see all these young people holding signs.”

Heat was ‘brutal’

The Face the Truthers had need of youthful energy and stamina:  temperatures soared to the sweltering upper nineties all week.

The most popular member of the core team was probably Brianna Harrington, a 2006 Christendom grad, who spent all her time walking up and down the line of demonstrators, handing out welcome bottles of cold water.

“It was a difficult week,” Walsh acknowledged.  “It was really grueling and exhausting.  The heat was brutal.

“But I think God provided that as an extra sacrifice for us; that’s why the tour was so fruitful.”

“The hardest part for me was being yelled and cursed at,” said Meghan Beller.

At the Bowie stop, Meghan had a bagel thrown at her by a scornful woman driver.

She was also singled out by an angry middle-aged man who got out of his car and passed up two older demonstrators to curse and yell close-up at the young Christendom junior.

“Chrissie emphasized that we be non-confrontational and not respond” to verbal attacks, said Meghan.

So she “offered it up, because I know that it’s a good cause, and we’re planting seeds even though we might not know it.”

But for every negative response, the Truthers had four or five positive ones, said Chrissie:  thumbs up, honking horns, or encouraging words.

At the Arundel Mills stop, she was elated when a driver pulled over and handed her three gallon-jugs of cold iced tea and plastic cups.

“We got so much support!” she exclaimed.

The positive responses are important, said Peter Shinn, who at 45 was one of the older core group members.

“We are encouraging people who are pro-life to pay more attention to pro-life issues,” said the Herndon, Va., resident.

“It also helps show them that they are not alone – that there are many other pro-lifers who are working in a united way.”

No kids ‘unwanted’

Truthers experienced some memorable encounters at various stops.

The stop near the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., had wound up and Barry Sullivan was getting in a car with Shinn and Eric Scheidler when “an older gentleman” pulled up and introduced himself as Coleman McCarthy, a writer for the liberal National Catholic Reporter and the Washington Post.

“Were you involved in this protest?” he asked.

When they said they were, McCarthy asked if any of them had adopted any children.

“Yes, I have two,” said Sullivan.

“So you’ve adopted two of these unwanted children,” said McCarthy.

“No, they were not unwanted,” the pro-lifer countered.  “Their mothers were not in a position to raise them, and because they loved them so much, they gave them to us.”

Sullivan pointed out to McCarthy that for liberals, abortion is “the only issue that you have to have a qualifier to be allowed to speak out about it:  you either have to be a woman, or to have adopted some children.

“I’ve been blessed tremendously with two adopted children, and I could never repay the Lord for that.”

But the other demonstrators have nothing personal to gain from being out there, he told the writer:  “It takes a lot of guts for them to be here in 100-degree heat. They’re doing it because they think it’s the right thing to do.”

The exchange was cordial, said Sullivan.

“He’s in his sixties, so maybe he’s re-thinking his position on abortion,” he surmised.

Cabbie volunteers

At the Holocaust Museum stop later that day, Ames experienced the extremes.

A man who was carrying a 3-year-old boy on his shoulders screamed at him, “You f-----g people, you Nazis!  Every time I see you people, I write a check to Planned Parenthood.”

At the other end of the spectrum, an African-American cab driver pulled up and exclaimed, “God bless you for doing this!  I am impressed by your signs.  But I notice you have no people of color.”

Jack invited the cabbie to remedy that by joining them.

Ten minutes later, the man, who owned his own cab, parked it, came over and held a sign.

Opposition also emerged at the Westminster stop, where a “motley crew” of 10 or 15 people mounted a counter-protest with crude, homemade signs – no match for the approximately 50 Truthers, said Ames.

This card’s for you

At the Northern Parkway stop, Brianna was handing out water when a woman driver stopped and gave her a card with the name and phone number of a crisis pregnancy center on it – “in case anyone needs it,” the woman told her.

Five minutes later, a man walked up to Brianna and said that his girlfriend was pregnant and wanted an abortion, but he didn’t want her to have it.

Brianna handed him the card.  “This was meant for you,” she told him.

Between the stops, at luncheons and dinners provided for the Truthers along the way, “We never had as many speakers, and as many good speakers,” said Ames.

“All their stories were related to their pro-life activism.  I figured the most important thing was to inspire our core team with stories from these pro-life leaders.”

Belinda Mathers, who headed up a long line of sign holders on the median strip in front of Arundel Mills Mall, expressed the overriding sentiment of the Face the Truthers.

“I feel like we’re telling the whole world that we need to stop abortion,” said the Gambrills resident.

“People don’t understand what abortion is – the truth needs to be out there.  To me, these signs say it all.”