{"id":9558,"date":"2017-03-15T09:35:48","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T15:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/offtheshelfandonline.blog\/?p=9558"},"modified":"2017-03-15T09:46:45","modified_gmt":"2017-03-15T15:46:45","slug":"a-fight-for-life-schmitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/?p=9558","title":{"rendered":"A Fight For Life – Schmitt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peaceful Prayer Gives Community Members Hope in Ending Abortion\ufffd<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Joy Pace, a supporter of 40 Days For Life, stands behind\ufffdPlanned Parenthood with her homemade poster on Tues., March 15th.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To view\ufffdmy video package, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To view my script, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

40 Days for Life <\/a>is a multi-faith, multi-church, international collaboration that takes place for 40 days each spring and each fall in countries all over the world. People come together to pray for an end to abortion outside Planned Parenthood<\/a> on the corner of Third St. and Stoughton St. from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nine years ago, 40 Days For Life made its way to Champaign<\/a>. Since then, pro-life supporters in the area have organized 17 campaigns. Through silent prayer, meditation and pro-life signage, supporters hope to quietly demonstrate their opposition to abortion.<\/p>\n

Dolores Sofranko is involved with many pro-life organizations in the area. She said she hopes those considering abortion\ufffdunderstand they are making decisions that may hamper their spiritual, mental and physical growth for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n

“It’s a living, breathing, active way of letting people know that there are people who are praying for them,” she said.<\/p>\n

For some, getting rid of abortion seems impossible, but they believe their non-violent method is the most powerful tool for change.<\/p>\n

Sharon Foreman walks the perimeter of Planned Parenthood each week while praying the rosary. She said the community should take notice of 40 Days For Life because abortion devalues life.<\/p>\n

“Our respect for life is eroding in lots of different ways, so I think\ufffdit’s important that we respect life from beginning to end,” she said.<\/p>\n

Many pray because they’ve been pro-life since birth, but for co-chair Rene\ufffd Mullen, marching outside Planned Parenthood has a deeper meaning.<\/p>\n

Mullen’s family heritage is Jewish. Many of her relatives were persecuted and killed because of their race during World War II. She relates abortion to the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

“I truly believe the past decades of abortion being legal in the U.S. is another tragic blot on the history of the world and on our nation’s history, where some people have decided that some are less than human,” Mullen said. “As a result, 60 million babies have been lost to abortion.”<\/p>\n

40 Days for Life may not end abortion in the near future, but its supporters never underestimate the power of prayer.<\/p>\n

“I believe all things are possible with God,” Sharon Foreman said.<\/p>\n

Reflection<\/h2>\n

I am very proud of this\ufffdfull package assignment, and overall, I am happy with how it turned out. I felt prepared to tackle this story after developing fundamental multimedia skills this semester, and putting it all together was both challenging and enjoyable. I felt that I put a lot of effort into this assignment,\ufffdconducting in-depth interviews with\ufffdfive different subjects over the course of a week. Unfortunately, due to the time constraints of this package, I was not able to include my interviews with another 40 Days For Life supporter and a Catholic Priest on campus.<\/p>\n

Looking back, I wish I had a greater variety of b-roll. The video of the supporters marching with their signs looks repetitive, however, I tried to change up the location and the composition of each shot as best as I could. While 40 Days For Life aims to have people outside Planned Parenthood for 12 hours each day, unfortunately, there were many gaps of time without supporters. Additionally, many times, there was only a group of 1-2 people there at a time. I wish there was a larger group to enhance my story, but it did not work out that way, and that challenged me as a reporter. I needed to be more creative in my thinking, and I needed to make the most of what I was given. I believe that is a valuable lesson as a journalist — I must always be ready for the unexpected.<\/p>\n

This story touched me in many ways on a personal level. This issue impacts so many people on both sides of the argument, and it is prevalent in our political realm today. Over the course of 1.5 weeks, I witnessed the intense passion and relentless courage these supporters had in their beliefs. I watched them laugh. I watched them cry. I watched them raise their voice in anger, but also quiver in silence when they were sad. I’m glad I chose to cover a challenging subject, and I’m especially grateful for the lessons I learned and the great people I met. The organizers of the event were so willing to work with my schedule to make sure I had everything I needed, even if it meant coming back two days in a row or standing outside in below-freezing temperatures for an interview. There are a lot of good people in this world, and I’m glad I was able to shine a light on just a few of them.<\/p>\n

As I finished\ufffdmy last interview with Joy Pace, she came over and gave me a hug. She\ufffdtold me she thought I was special. This meant a lot to me. This story meant a lot to me. And, I hope that shows in my work and in the video I made.<\/p>\n

I’m constantly amazed by the art of journalism, and I am reminded each week why I do what I do. It all feels so worth it after stories like this one.<\/p>\n

Thanks for your attention! Enjoy.<\/p>\n

Olivia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peaceful Prayer Gives Community Members Hope in Ending Abortion\ufffd To view\ufffdmy video package, please click here. To view my script, please click here. 40 Days for Life is a multi-faith, multi-church, international collaboration that takes place for 40 days each spring and each fall in countries all over the world. People come together to prayContinue reading “A Fight For Life – Schmitt”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9067,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1040],"tags":[1160,1161,152,339,76,1054,75,1051,1162,27,108,91],"class_list":["post-9558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring2017j215","tag-40-days-for-life","tag-abortion","tag-champaign","tag-j215","tag-journalism","tag-mmj","tag-multimedia","tag-olivia-schmitt","tag-peaceful-protest","tag-uiuc","tag-video","tag-video-package","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9067"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9558"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9596,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9558\/revisions\/9596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}