While residents of the District were sleepily shuffling off to work this past Tuesday, still recovering from a heat wave that sucked the city dry last week, staff and interns from Students for Life of America braved the lingering humidity to bring morning commuters face to face with an almost 4 decade-old social injustice, the worst our nation has ever seen.
Beginning as a Facebook invitation from an SFLA intern that quickly garnered support from the organization, Metro Missions grew from a following of just a handful of interns to almost the entire group of Missionaries for Life and SFLA staff. Starting at 6:30 am, volunteers of the Mission teamed up into groups of two to visit four different metro locations (Ballston-MU, Vienna/Fairfax-GMU, Dunn Loring-Merrifield and Franconia-Springfield) and braved high temperatures – and a mixed reaction from commuters – for two hours.
Many metro riders casually brushed past the smiling folks greeting them and handing out pro-life literature from the Human Life Alliance. Some stopped to ask them more about what “social injustice” they were being greeted with so early in the morning.
“One man stopped to ask who we were with,” said Tina Whittington, Assistant Director of SFLA. “I explained that we organize campus groups to help support pregnant women on campus and make college campuses more comfortable for them. When he asked how we felt about abortion and I answered, ‘We’re against it,’ he nodded and said, ‘Good.’”
And other commuters had a lot to say, too.
Anna Fronzaglia, a 2011 Missionary for Life with Students for Life and organizer of the Metro Missions Facebook invitation, came in contact with a number of commuters who voiced their opinions on the early morning flyering.
“One man scanned the paper and then explained that he has been involved with the pro-life movement for several years and could not thank me enough for [what we were doing]” Fronzaglia said. “Another commuter gruffly stated, ‘I am staunchly pro-choice’ before walking away, but he was kind enough to return the newsletter.”
Students for Life hopes to garner support for the event they hope will become more frequent.
“I hope this mission expands into a national movement across the country,” said Fronzaglia. “I envision that at least twice a year both pro-life college and high school students and other pro-life community members band together on two designated national mission days to pass out literature. In between this time, people can host and organize their own missions whenever they’d like to perpetually educate and advocate the understanding, healing and conversion of hearts and minds on this injustice.”