Erica Lindsley
Teens for Life is a youth organization in Sacramento affiliated with SOHLNET (Sanctity of Human Life Network). The mission of Teens for Life is to turn around this death-saturated culture and reach out to our generation with the gospel and the truth about abortion.
Teens for Life works at several different levels to take back this culture and bring youth to Christ. With Project Truth, Teens for Life reaches out to the public high schools and junior highs, informing our peers about abortion and its consequences and presenting those who are experiencing these consequences with the message of Christ’s forgiving power.
At local church youth groups, Teens for Life does presentations, encouraging Christian youth who have the basis for understanding the sanctity of life to act upon this understanding, making a stand for Christ and joining us in “rescuing those being led away to slaughter”. For those who take on this challenge, Teens for Life holds weekly training meetings on everything from sidewalk counseling and public debate to what it means to have a personal relationship with Christ and spiritual warfare.
Teens for Life also brings the message of truth to abortion clinic doors and to legislative hallways. At abortion clinics Teens for Life fights one of its hardest battles—reaching out to women at the last minute. We stand, unashamed, on the truth of the gospel and offer hope. We have had many women turn around and choose to keep their babies in this “last-minute” outreach. In the state Capitol we lobby and testify on pro-life bills, fighting for the unborn by taking a stand on truth in the legislature. Our most prevalent and ongoing political battle is over SB 780.We were in the Capitol on a consistent basis lobbying and testifying on this bill. At one point, we had sixteen teens attend a committee hearing and many of them testified on the bill.
This bill is a double whammy—it makes it yet more difficult to protect the unborn essentially by challenging and limiting our civil liberty of free speech. Governor Davis just signed this bill into law. This bill was introduced, debated, and won with faulty, outdated, and sometimes even unreferenced evidence. This bill will be law in January of next year if it is not repealed and Teens for Life intends to do all it can with other pro-life leaders to do just that. Teens for Life, however, is not just working in the Legislature in California.
In early September, ten members of Teens for Life went to Washington D.C. with the President of SOHLNET, Bud Reeves, to join other pro-life leaders in standing against the recent embryonic stem cell research decision. While there, we talked with the aides of local representatives Matsui, Pombo, and Doolittle, and with the aides of Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. We also stood with other pro life leaders and pastors in setting up a meeting with Senator Orrin Hatch for early November to encourage him to stay strong and not compromise in his pro-life position, especially in regards to the current embryonic stem cell research debate. It is absolutely necessary for pro life leaders to take a stand in these confrontational areas if we are going to teach our society to once again value life.
These are battles Teens for Life is fighting right now and we intend to fight many more. The battle is not of this world, but as Ephesians 6 says, “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Teens for Life is taking a stand and realizes that without the “full armor of God” and without trusting in Him, all is in vain.
1 Timothy 4:12 encourages youth to be an example in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, and in purity. This is the standard that Teens for Life strives to live up to and hopes, with this example, to be able to change the “culture of death” that has so consumed not only our generation, but our nation as a whole. Instead of just swatting at the mosquitoes, we want to join in with other pro-life organizations such as Life Legal Defense Foundation, Capital Resource Institute, Women’s Resource Network, American Life League, etc. to take out the swamp instead.