Life is precious, and I am sorry that it took this long for us to recognize and realize it. Now we are here to fight, and we are here to stay.
They say what they are doing is right, it is the will of the gods that control them, that they are saving the lives of so many innocent children because they are not able to speak up for themselves. They call their protest bravery, their March for Life a symbol of hope and defiance because a child has the right to life no matter how the child was conceived. These pro-life supporters will often forget that the mother herself deserves the same right to life but is not granted that right because she has an unborn, voiceless child growing inside of her. Some pro-life supporters have gone as far to open fake abortion clinics to scare and terrorize pregnant women into not wanting an abortion. These mothers, no matter how old, are told that they should be happy they have the ability to bear children, even if it kills them or inflicts permanent physical damage.
Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old boy, was shot within seconds of police officers arriving to the scene at a playground in Cleveland, in response to a 911 call. There was no further investigation, just immediate action taken by the police officials who responded to the call. The same people who had claimed to be pro-life began to state how a child should not play with toys that resemble guns, and how this was essentially the fault of the twelve-year-old boy. People began to speculate where his mother was, if he even had one. This incident came after recent events of police brutality against African American citizens across America, sparking a nationwide movement called Black Lives Matter. These members advocated for police training to include non-bias training, gun reform laws, body cameras, police accountability, and much more. This movement brought to light the many struggles an average African American faces, but because they were facing police brutality, many people silenced their movement with the counter All Lives Matter movement, which was based on blatant racism and ignorance against minority groups. And so his name, along with the movement, have been silenced and swept under the rug, even as similar cases rise in headlines again and again.
Four years after Tamir’s life was taken, seventeen more children were executed on Valentine’s Day—not by police, but by a former nineteen-year-old student. He was always a threat to the school and has been expelled and reported to the FBI and police because of his threatening behavior. By this time, it was too late to act because he had already done his worst. America has a unique gun problem that is unlike any other in the world, and it comes with deadly consequences that don’t question “What if?” but rather “When will it happen again?” This time was different. Immediately, as the victims were carried out in black body bags, their friends had already created a movement that would ensure that these seventeen kids would be the last to ever die in a mass shooting by a weapon built to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. These mass shootings have become so common, these pro-life supporters began to testify and falsely claim that these survivors were actors hired by news outlets because the media loves the ratings. The supporters have continued to claim that “people kill people” and refuse to acknowledge that guns are a real threat to this nation. The All Lives Matter movement was painstakingly silent as teenagers, no older than I, took the stage and demanded immediate action.
As a generation, we call BS. We aren’t even old enough to say the word “bullshit” in front of our parents, but we are still able to recognize that we are all potential targets for the very next mass shooting. We are still able to recognize that this government, that these supporters, do not give a damn about life because they are fighting for the total opposite of what it means to be alive. A strong movement like this has never taken place before and has forced the media to continually cover the Never Again movement as we advocate for the right to life under new pressures for gun reform. The adults that are supposed to be our role models have done nothing but give us a platform to voice our distaste for their ignorance, and this time is the perfect and only time we refuse to be just as silenced as everyone else. We will include and promote the livelihood of every person, of every identity and of all backgrounds, because it has come to the point where no one is safe as long as semiautomatic rifles are available to the public. After that, we have an even bigger agenda to accomplish, and if you think we’ll stop, think again. We are the change and the heroes that we have been waiting for, and we call BS.