New blog post & Supreme Court protest

Well, I've got another abolishabortion.com blog post to share with y'all (the southern interns are having an influence over me!): http://studentsforlife.org/2012/06/26/on-keeping-it-simple/

Let me know in the comments section what you think about it! I love comments :) It makes me believe someone is out there, reading my words! haha.

Anyways, this week's been good so far. Yesterday was a unique day because we met outside the Supreme Court Building to protest the Affordable Care Act, as certain parts of it (aka the "HHS mandate") force religious institutions, particularly Catholic, to violate their consciences in providing policies for all their employees that cover contraception and abortifacients (abortion-inducing drugs like the morning-after pill). We will be outside the Supreme Court again on Thursday with our homemade signs ("Your pills, your bills", "Where's The Freedom?", etc). Look for me on C-Span! If you don't know much about Obama's Affordable Care Act (which was passed in 2010 and the Constitutionality of which is now being decided by the Supreme Court), then learn! Here's an awesome website: http://standupforreligiousfreedom.com/mandate/

This picture circulated a lot around facebook yesterday:

Arriving in DC and walking straight up to the SFLA crew that was already stationed in front of the steps kneeling and praying was really intense. As you can kinda see in this picture, there was lots of media right in our faces, and I wasn't sure whether to look at the camera and smile, or keep a solemn look on my face as if the government was about to force Catholics to pay for contraception (oh, wait...). But really, it was such a humbling experience to publicly send a message without even saying a word. It was a little scary, and made me a little nervous, because I'm so eager to explain to people why I'm doing what I'm doing, and my defense for why it's logical and compassionate. It makes me uncomfortable to think that people are judging my beliefs without even hearing my defense. But that was what made it humbling--I had to let go of that desire to always please others, and instead simply stand (or kneel) for what I believe in and let the rest go.

On Thursday we will find out what the Supreme Court decided. They can either 1. strike down the entire Affordable Care Act, and Congress will start anew, 2. strike down the individual mandate, and be left with a messy healthcare act that doesn't make sense without that center piece, or 3. uphold the entire Act as constitutional. This decision matters, because it's going to have an impact on all of us, in many ways it already has. For the record, even without the religious freedom conflict, I am not much of a supporter of Obamacare. From the many articles I've read in the past few weeks, I don't think it makes sense economically, and I really don't think that this new system of healthcare is going to be any better for Americans than where we were before. I think that consumers need more choice, not more government-control.

And here's an amazing video from CatholicVote in response to the HHS Mandate: http://www.catholicvote.org/index.php?/site/eu_roadblock/

More pictures from my recent adventures to come soon!