The Texas Tribune

Camp’s Focus Is on Fighting Abortion

Ariel Min for The Texas Tribune

Campers at Reveal, a camp for teenagers sponsored by Texas Right to Life, where they learn to become effective activists.

By MORGAN SMITH

Published: August 2, 2012

BRYAN — In a lofted lodge at Messiah’s Ranch, a Christian retreat a few miles outside town, about 20 teenagers sat cross-legged in a circle, talking about what it means to be a good listener.

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• Times Topic: Abortion

It was a muggy, 95-degree day, and inside, the air-conditioning struggled to keep up as Laurie Stevens, a speech and debate coach, asked the group to whom they sometimes found it difficult to listen.

“Obama,” one girl said, deadpan, setting off a round of giggles.

Ms. Stevens waited for another response.

“My parents, when they tell me something I don’t want to do,” another girl offered.

Nodding, Ms. Stevens remained expectant.

“Pro-choice people,” a voice said finally, capturing the reason they were all there.

After a few more examples, Ms. Stevens summed up the discussion.

“When you don’t value what’s being said or the position that’s being held, it’s hard to listen,” she said.

The room around them has all the decorative touches expected of a rustic retreat; only, next to the wildlife trophies, there are laminated posters depicting fetal development at each month in the womb. A large folding table contained more poster boards, decorated with anti-abortion slogans and symbols, which sat alongside spiral notebooks, craft supplies and a scattering of soda and candy.

This is, after all, summer camp.

In its third year, Reveal summer camp is organized by Texas Right to Life, a statewide anti-abortion advocacy organization based in Houston. For $240, high school students can attend a two-week overnight camp that, along with providing plentiful icebreakers and s’mores, teaches them how to become activists. The site is on the outskirts of Bryan, an incubator of anti-abortion activism that has produced the 40 Days for Life prayer vigil campaign, now international, and Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood worker who has achieved rock-star status within the anti-abortion movement.

The camp’s proximity to Texas A&M University, where the group Pro-Life Aggies enjoys a thriving membership, ensures a steady supply of college-age counselors. (Texas A&M University is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.)

The camp features skits and swimming. There are workshops on starting a student organization and communicating effectively. Viewing YouTube videos of abortion procedures is an optional activity.

Many speakers also visit. This year the guests included Arland Nichols, the national director of Human Life International America, speaking on the ethics of in vitro fertilization, and David Pomerantz, an activist with Save the Storks, a group that offers sonograms to women onboard its bus outside abortion clinics. Two state representatives, Dwayne Bohac and Jim Murphy, both Republicans of Houston, visited during a workshop on lobbying the Legislature.

“They all have a passion; that’s why they are here,” Jen Rumpf, a second-year counselor and the president of Pro-Life Aggies, said of the campers.

The purpose of the camp, Ms. Rumpf said, is to plug students into the movement and help them refine their passion into knowledge they can use to advance the cause in their own communities.

Ms. Rumpf and other counselors said they tried to teach campers to avoid commonly perceived anti-abortion “turnoffs” — in particular, an overly aggressive, judgmental approach. She said counselors focused on a gentler, compassion-based form of persuasion.

“You really care about this woman, and you really care that other people don’t know about this issue. But are they bad people?” she said. “No, they just might not know all of the truth. Because that is really the only way that pro-lifers are going to win anything is inviting them in to talk.”

Back at the lodge, campers were about to start watching video clips of anti-abortion activists speaking with abortion-rights sympathizers on the street, to critique and observe the activists’ methods.

But first Ms. Stevens had a message for them.

“If we are going to be effective, we have to care about who we are talking to,” she said. “You’ve got to be sensitive to make a difference in someone’s world.”

msmith@texastribune.org