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More than 300 Kosciusko County residents gathered Thursday night to celebrate life - with the goal of saving many more.
The Kosciusko County Right To Life organization hosted its annual banquet at Rodeheaver Auditorium, giving attendees an update on the past year's activities and a preview of the goals for 1999. Featured speakers included Nina Fuller, of Youth Inc. of Southern Indiana, and the keynote address was delivered by Carol Everett, a national right to life advocate and former abortion provider.
The event was emceed by former Warsaw mayor Jeff Plank.
"The cause we celebrate tonight is just, it's needed - it's just plain right," Plank said. "A pro-choice - my choice - philosophy is against the American way."
He then introduced Fuller, whose organization ministers to youth in southern Indiana, counseling many troubled young females with unwanted pregnancies against seeking abortions.
"My message to you tonight is to not give in to your fears. God has a plan for each of us and he will see us through," she said.
Fuller said she came to that understanding three years ago when her doctor told her the daughter she was carrying - her third child - had a heart defect and Downs Syndrome.
"Many people said I shouldn't carry my baby to term," she said. "But my daughter has touched my life, the lives of my husband and of my sons, and of so many other people.
"My oldest son said God gave her to us, to show us how precious life is," she said. "That was God's plan."
David Koontz, president of the Kosciusko County Right to Life, said the group's efforts were well received in the community, and had a tremendous effect in raising the awareness and opposition to abortion in the county during 1998.
But more work is needed, he added.
"In 1996, the last year for which we can get numbers, 86 Kosciusko county women had abortions. They didn't get them in the county; they had to go to Fort Wayne or South Bend or Merrillville," he said. "Our goal for 1999 is to have no county women having abortions."
To accomplish that goal, Koontz said, the county organization wants to provide a subscription to the national Right To Life newsletter to every public and school library in the county; air television commercials stressing the theme "Love them both"; expand the high-visibility billboard campaign of the same theme; and bring the theater presentation of "Tilly," an adaptation of the book by Frank E. Peretti, telling the story of a couple who experienced the trauma of abortion and how they recovered.
The evening ended with the address by Everett, who after having an abortion herself in 1973, attempted to justify her choice by becoming a provider of the procedure in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
From her inside perspective, she told of how the abortion industry promotes ineffective birth control techniques to keep the number of unwanted pregnancies high. This is necessary because abortion clinics need to perform five abortions per day to make a profit, she said.
"And with a 50 percent repeat rate from young women between 14 and 18, abortion is clearly being sold as a method of birth control," she said.
She said Indiana is fortunate that it is one of few states in the country that prohibit a partial birth abortion - one that is performed late in the pregnancy under the guise of saving the life of the mother. The painful procedure is unneeded, and merely a way for the abortionist to increase their income.
"If saving the life of the mother is truly the intent behind a partial birth abortion, they would do a C-section and save both lives- not the three-day, agonizing procedure of a partial birth abortion," she said.
She then encouraged the attendees to give generously to the county right to life organization - to allow them to continue to encourage young women to choose life.
Some of the projects needing to be funded in 1999 include $1,500 to put national Right To Life newsletters in all county libraries; $10,000 for the billboard campaign; $10,500 for the county's portion of a 13-week television ad campaign; $7,000 for two performances of Tilly; $5,000 for the county Right To Life office expenses; $3,000 for newspaper advertising; and $15,000 for a county right to life office and part-time staff.
"Fourteen hundred babies die everyday and no one cares - except you, my friends," she said. "We're turning the corner. We're winning the war.
"We're on God's side in this fight," she concluded. "And the funny thing is - we're the only ones having babies."
