Ashley Garecht

Opinion contributor

As a mother, there are many things I hope to teach my children. Sometimes lessons happen in conversations, and other times they take root through lived experiences — including challenging, adversarial ones. The best learning takes place, I’ve found, when conversations and experiences come together and my children see words turn into actions.

On Holy Thursday, April 18, I went to the Planned Parenthood in downtown Philadelphia to pray with my two teenage daughters and one of their friends.

It was important for us to be there in person, standing in front of the clinic and praying for everyone coming in and out of the building so that our belief in the dignity of human life from conception to natural death and our love for all of God’s children, no matter their circumstances, could be expressed in our calm, physical presence and our peaceful, audible prayer.

An elected official's harassment goes viral

We were praying a rosary at the corner of the Planned Parenthood property line when a man approached us, yelling angrily at me and at the teenage girls with me. I found out later this man was a state representative of Pennsylvania — Brian Sims.

I stepped in front of him and asked him to speak only to me and said we were not interested any altercations. A few minutes later, as we were packing up to leave, Sims again approached us.

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This time, he took things a step further, and was filming us with his phone. Pointing his phone directly at my girls and their friend, he asked for his viewers to expose the identities of the girls in exchange for a donation that he would make to Planned Parenthood.

To be absolutely clear: Sims not only aggressively verbally accosted three minors, he also attempted to doxx them by offering a financial donation in exchange for their personal information. His actions were reprehensible and entirely unbecoming of any adult male, let alone an elected official.

After the video went viral, he deleted it, but another video remains online of him berating an elderly woman praying outside the clinic. As a result of the video, pro-life groups rallied Friday in Philadelphia.

We were at the clinic that day as part of the volunteer team for Sidewalk Servants, an organization that coordinates volunteers to be outside of local abortion providers to pray for the lives of the unborn and their mothers. We also gently offer information about alternative resources that are available to them at crisis pregnancy centers, including ultrasounds, baby supplies like diapers and formula and counseling services.

I want the conversations we have at home about the sacred nature of all human life to be exhibited by myself and with my daughters in a tangible way. These aren’t just theories and hypotheticals. These are real women facing challenging circumstances who are carrying real babies in their wombs. The babies aren’t clumps of cells or mere “parts” of the mother’s body. They are children, not yet born into the world but alive, distinct, and valued.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, in Philadelphia in 2017 alone, 11,140 lives were terminated by abortion. That’s 11,140 children who will never know what it’s like to be held in a loving embrace, or feel the warmth of a perfect May day in Philadelphia, or raise their hands to cheer for our beloved sports teams. These children are worthy of our love, respect and protection, and our city is poorer for their absence.

American values, America's birthplace

As events unfolded that day in April and then again recently when the video taken by Sims went viral, my family has had yet another opportunity to experience the confluence of words and actions.

Because we are fortunate to live in America’s birthplace, we have spoken often of the fundamental rights we have as citizens of this great country — rights which were explicitly enumerated in the Constitution by Founding Fathers who walked some of the very streets around the clinic where we were praying.

When my husband and I cast our votes in every primary and general election, we take our children with us and explain that our votes represent our voices as we state who we want to represent us at the local, state, and federal levels of government. When my older daughter attended the March for Life with her high school Students for Life club in January, we told her we were proud of her for showing her beliefs by marching peacefully and with dignity, despite the critics.

The First Amendment of our Bill of Rights clearly states that my children and I have every right to stand up for what we believe in. No one, not even an elected official, has the right to infringe on our freedom of speech and religion. Despite the storm that has surrounded us, it is critical to me that my children see my husband and me stand up for their right to free speech, defend their public expression of faith, and do so calmly, assertively and without apology.

Words that turn into actions are powerful. I am so grateful to know the truth of God’s love for every human being, and to be able to live out that knowledge publicly and explicitly in, the city where the self-evident, unalienable right to life and the free exercise of religion and freedom of speech were first declared the law of the land.

Ashley Garecht is a mom who homeschools three of her children, and lives outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.