Story of my blogIn my social media class, we were given the opportunity to write a blog on WHATEVER topic we wanted. At first I thought maybe I would blog about figure skating or Minnesota, but in the back of my mind I was hoping to write about the pro-life movement. I told some friends about ym idea and they thought I was crazy and "preparing myself for failure." I was nervous that writing from an unpopular opinion on a college campus wouldn't go over well, but I have endless amounts of encouragement from my professor and classmates. I feel so blessed to be in a class that is so welcoming to different views. So why did I write about this for my blog? I am writing about the pro-life movement in hopes that someone out there is listening and may feel inspired to help find a better solution to this brokenness in our culture. I think it is so easy to just say things are too complicated to fix or people are just too divided on the issue to make compromises. I truly think that our generation will be the people to change that. I think that we all have a lot more in common than we think and I really hope that through this blog people are reorganizing that more and more. My passion for the movementAs I mentioned in my first blog post, my passion for the pro-life movement began at a fairly young age when I heard the story of my best friend who's mother was pressured to get an abortion but didn't follow through. I later learned that my grandmother had a similar story when she found out she was pregnant with my mother. Two people, who mean the world to me, were at risk of not being here because of abortion. This really hit home for me so I began doing more and more research about the topic and began listening to prominent pro-life speakers. I went to the RNC in 2012 in Tampa Bay, Florida where I heard Phyllis Schlafly speak at a pro-life rally and at the past RNC in Cleveland, I heard Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, speak at the pro-life rally. I have also heard some Catholic nuns speak about the movement and every time I hear someone talk about it, I realize how broken our culture truly is. This has inspired me to be pretty involved in the movement. I participate in the March for Life, I am a member of Students for Life, and I am now a blogger for ProLife Youth. I would like to become more involved with the movement in the future by volunteering at crisis pregnancy shelters, but I am still working on that! For now, I hope that by sharing my view it will allow people to look at other perspectives on the issue and make the issue a little less polarized. I hope that you all have been enjoying what I have been writing about and keep tuning in for some more articles soon! Who's Listening? The main audience I am trying to reach is GW students and teachers and ultimately, I think that is the audience I am reaching. According to Weebly's analytics, most of my blog traffic is coming from people following a link (which is most likely from our SMPA blogroll link). There are some other "unique" visitors, which are probably coming from Twitter since I have tweeted about my blog on my personal Twitter account. To boost engagement, I am going to do three things. I am going to share my blog on my Facebook page, make a weekly tweet to promote my blog, and ask a friend to share or retweet one of my posts to reach a wider audience! I will keep you posted on how successful this is in boosting engagement but in the meantime check-in on Sundays for more interesting posts about the Pro-Life movement!
3 Comments
Lauren
4/10/2017 04:40:30 pm
I think this blog is a helpful perspective that GW really needs right now, actually. Even if people don't agree with you, I am glad your blog is getting out to GW students so that they can understand and interact with pro-life individuals. My parents are pretty conservative and my mom is super pro-life, and it always pains me a little when people automatically assume that all pro-life individuals, or conservatives, are "dumb" or "uneducated" because that's simply not true. I also think it's really cool that this blog has kind of launched you into actually blogging for a pro-life organization - not everyone can say that their blogging skills got them that far.
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I agree with Lauren 100%. Even though most people at GW probably won't agree with you, it's important that we hear and understand your perspective and the pro-life movement more broadly. Understanding leads to empathy and there's a serious dearth of empathy in the current political atmosphere. Keep doing you!
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Cat
4/12/2017 08:23:06 am
Like the other two said, I think it's great you're doing this blog topic. When I thought about what topic I wanted to do for my blog I considered doing "The Life of a Republican at a Liberal School," but I was too scared about the backlash I would get and I'm not even 100% Republican, I'm a very moderate one. I come from a very conservative pro-life Catholic family and I received a lot of unfair treatment growing up because of that. Although I may not be a pro-life supporter, I care about the movement very much because it is a part of my family. I'm glad you chose this topic because there needs to be more people willing to stand up for their beliefs that may not be the norm at GW (myself included). It's really hard at this school to have conservative beliefs, but it's a conversation that students at this school, regardless if they are pro-choice, should listen to and understand. I think this blog is very informative and would leave any of your viewers to understanding the pro-life movement better.
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AuthorI am a sophomore at GWU, originally from Northern Minnesota, studying International Affairs and Journalism. This is a blog for my social media class and I really hope you enjoy my perspective as a pro-life millennial. Archives
April 2017
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