- This is something real
that is happening now
and this is something that affects me
and everybody else around me.
I'm Veronica, I'm 16 and I live
in Walnut Creek, California.
I used to be in the
pro-choice group of people.
My family was pro-life
but I didn't really know
what it meant to be pro-life.
I was like, I would never have an abortion
but I don't really care about it.
You know, it doesn't affect me.
There was a summer camp,
a pro-life summer camp,
that my older sisters
had gone to before me.
So I went and
I think it was the first day of the camp,
I saw for the first time a
video of an aborted baby.
It kind of was just a waking up moment.
I started my own pro-life group.
We have a weekly class that I teach
and then once a month
we have a larger event.
So sometimes we do diaper drives
or maternity clothes drives.
We counsel young women
who were in a crisis
pregnancy situation.
And then sometimes we
just do peaceful protests,
like we'll just hold
signs in San Francisco.
I don't wanna go somewhere and
say you have to be this way
or you have to agree with me.
I just wanna go and ask
questions and understand
their view better.
We have gotten people
who scream at us or spit
at us or throw stuff at us
and we're like hey, we just
wanna have a conversation
with you, this isn't necessary.
A lot of the times, when
people find out that
I am conservative or that I am pro-life,
they think because I'm
conservative I agree with
everything that every
conservative politician
has ever said, which I don't.
During the election, when republican won,
my whole school went crazy.
They were all having
protests and everything.
And they were like, you're conservative,
which means you support this, and I'm like
I don't!
It definitely sharpens my people skills
and it makes me a more patient person.
I think it makes me a better person.
Sometimes because
everybody disagrees with me
sometimes it feels like
I'm like slowly sinking
and then like, I freak out sometimes.
I don't lose myself in that.
I always go back to why I do what I do
and I think back to that first
day that I saw the picture
of the aborted baby, I'm like this is why
I do what I have to do.
I did a protest at my school.
There's a girl that came up to me
and she was like, "I'm on
my way to an abortion clinic
"now because I'm pregnant."
And she said, "Nobody told
me how the procedure's
"gonna work, or what's gonna happen."
so I explained to her the procedure.
She said, "I don't have any support,
"I don't have anywhere to go."
I took her to
a local pregnancy help center
and she just gave birth
to a baby boy a couple months ago.
Sometimes people don't even need people to
answer their questions, they
just need someone to listen.
That's why I'm pro-life too,
it's just so I can be
a person for someone.
Just to be there for other human beings.
(piano music)
