They say if you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. How cliché that may seem, but honestly how true it really is!
I love the work I get to do, leading a team of talented individuals to defend women and babies from the darkness of abortion. Perhaps my favorite part of the job is speaking for the voiceless, quite literally, from the stage with a microphone in hand. I love sharing my heart and knowledge with so many of you as we navigate this culture of death together.
Recently, I was at a speaking engagement and a young teenage girl, Emma*, came up to talk to me after the event. She was noticeably a little timid, but I could tell she had some heaviness weighing on her.
Emma shared that she was recently with a group of friends from her dance team, and a question came up about abortion. As they stood there together, one of her friends asked each girl if she was pro-life. One by one, they courageously shared that yes, they were. The girl who was questioning them seemed so surprised by each response and began to tear up when she shared that her mom worked at the local abortion clinic. Stunned, the group of girls initially did not know how to react. They had never experienced something like this before, and they weren’t exactly sure how to handle it. However, Emma leaned in to hug her friend and tell her while she didn’t agree with her mom’s stance on the abortion issue, she still very much loved her . . . and one by one the rest of her friends each followed to do the same.
No judgment. No condemnation. Real truth.
My new friend stood before me after sharing her story and anxiously waited for me to react about how they responded to their friend. I was so moved by what I heard, that for the first time in a long time . . . you can fact-check this with my family . . . I was nearly speechless.
This is the Vitae way, loving people enough to tell them the truth, with truth wrapped in compassion.
Eventually, with tears welling in my eyes, I was able to form the words to tell Emma how courageous and honorable her actions were.
Through further conversation, I could sense just how intelligent this young woman was, as she kept asking me deeper questions about what more she can do. I went on to share with her about the Asch Conformity Experiment.
It’s a classic 1950s era study in social psychology that demonstrates the power of conformity to social pressure. In the experiment, participants were asked to match the length of a line on one card to one of three lines on another card. The task was simple, and the correct answer was obvious.
However, each participant was placed in a room with a group of individuals who were experiment-plants, fake participants, but pretended to be real. They were there to intentionally choose the wrong line. The key finding was that most of the participants conformed to the group’s incorrect choice, even when they knew it was wrong.
This highlighted the strong influence of social pressure and the desire to fit in. It also showed that with enough voices in the room telling you to ignore the evidence that you see in front of you, you doubt yourself to the point that you start to believe what the rest of the group is telling you to believe. This illustrates how effectively people can be influenced by the opinions and actions of those around them, often leading them to conform to a perceived majority view even against their better judgment.
This is exactly what we see in culture now. Enough people believe everyone is unfazed and unbothered by the idea of abortion, that they feel they must be too. They feel that their doubts, the nudge at their heart, is crazy-not normal. They see an endless barrage of social media content and speeches from activists and politicians, so they believe that the majority view is staunchly pro-abortion, when we know that not to be true.
Guess what? The experiment didn’t end there, and the other part of it is by far the most hopeful and important finding connected to what we do at Vitae Foundation. The experiment leaders decided to switch things up. They tried intentionally planting one person in the room who chose the right answer, while the others still chose the wrong answer, to see if the participant who was unaware would feel comfortable saying what he thought was the truth. Repeatedly, the blind participant also spoke up for what he knew to be true!
We can apply this to culture now. When just one person is willing to speak up for the truth, it inspires others to join in. It creates an environment where people are comfortable standing apart from the crowd, because they don’t feel so alone, and they are affirmed in their beliefs. That’s really what has enabled the other side to be so strong, isn’t it? Repeatedly being affirmed and uplifted in their beliefs? Well, we have to do the same thing, except better because we are on the right side of truth.
Be the friend willing to stand up and lead with love.
Be willing to love people enough to tell them the truth.
Be a truth telling, culture changer.
Be an Emma.
Brandy Meeks, President/CEO
* Emma is a pseudonym used to protect the identity of the young girls featured in this story.
