Dan Segal has been at the helm of DeKalb County Chapter of Georgia Right to Life (GRTL) chapter since 2018, where he navigates the currents of a more liberal and secular culture. In this interview, he shares about his own pro-life views and his experience leading the DeKalb chapter in hostile territory. If you live in DeKalb and want to get involved, email Dan at personhoodatlanta@gmail.com.
Dan, how and when did you become pro-life? When did you realize you were pro-life?
I’m pro-life, in the sense of wanting to protect those living human beings who have yet to be born, for the same reasons I’m in favor of laws against assault and murder of those of us who have been born. Almost no one seriously questions that we who have already been born are entitled to legal protections against those who would initiate violence against us.
In a very real sense, I have always been pro-life. The child of liberal parents, I was told the facts of life (in general terms) at a young age. Having just learned about gestation, about my time in Mommy’s tummy, I remember asking, “Why aren’t people considered nine months old when they’re born?” And the answer was that in China, people are given an honorary year at birth to acknowledge that time before they emerge from the womb. This seemed imprecise arithmetically but at least satisfied my requirement.
Later, at about age 13, I saw a page in Mad magazine, a publication of various parodies and cartoons, of “Political buttons we’ll never see” or some such. One of them was THE ONLY PEOPLE FOR ABORTION ARE ALREADY BORN. The force of this struck me: the undemocratic nature of abortion, that those aborted are not consulted about their wishes; rather, their fate is imposed upon them by others, and this helped strengthen my convictions.
Why did you become a chapter leader?
My county (DeKalb) no longer had an active chapter, and I thought it could use one, although in its messaging it would need to be especially tailored to its more secular, less conservative environment.
On that note, how do you engage the secular, liberal culture of your county?
Home to both Emory and the CDC, DeKalb is very much a “blue” county, so I was wanting to use pro-life argumentation tailored toward a less religious, less Republican audience, drawing on universal human-rights principles.
Content like this:
https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/nvp/
https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/nvp/articles.html
That Georgia Right to Life is a Christian organization doesn’t mean our public witness needs to be confined to The Bible Says.
Most people accept ordinary murder laws and do not think these an imposition of religion. Great! Then all we have to do is show them that the preborn child is the born child minutes later!
Why do you do it? Why do you give your time, talent, and treasure, to be a chapter leader?
I cannot think of a worthier cause than helping to persuade people to select life instead of death for innocent human beings.
What is involved in being a chapter leader, and what do chapters do?
Thankfully one does not have to do all the work. To lead a chapter, one must first form a Steering Committee, at minimum two other people who are not also your spouse.
What the Chapter is meant to do is reach out to the surrounding community, kind of become Pro-Life Central, presenting ongoing advocacy, information, the case for protecting human life at all ages and stages, answers to tough questions, a thousand things.
There is tremendous flexibility because people can be reached in so many ways. Some chapters host information tables at county fairs, some line the roads with volunteers holding signs, some host fundraisers for pregnancy resource centers, and some actually go to the places where abortions are done, to present alternatives at the very last minute possible. And of course some do a combination of things like this, and others.
In particular, what are some things you have done since being a chapter leader?
There has been a limited presence at area abortion clinics; we participated in nationally-coordinated protests of Planned Parenthood; we coordinated a Life Chain or two — that’s a public gathering, dozens of people holding themed signs to call attention to the need and the cause; and we tried to assist mothers who had already chosen life, when they almost didn’t, in the midst of crisis pregnancies.
What excites you about being a chapter leader?
Certainly that “this is where the action is,” or at least a lot of it. Most people do not regularly conduct conversations about life and death, with an actual life at stake!
What is the most difficult thing about being a chapter leader?
Probably the same thing that is so crazy about just being pro-life: that so few people seem at all interested even in the abstract idea of protecting innocent human life!
Modern and Postmodern people seem to have become extremely confused about basic things like where babies come from, about the ongoing value of human life. Even where some tepid lip service is obtained, concerns about abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and other important life issues are given only marginal status.
Even though the basic human right to life underpins the whole of society and civilization, politically these literally life-or-death issues are shoved in with reducing tax rates or other items of vastly lesser importance, diminishing the status of protecting life to that of just a hobby of one more interest group to be placated or pacified.
How would you encourage others to become a chapter leader in their area?
I would have them look around at the need. Of course, they may not be so very much aware of the need, so first they should attend a Pillars of Personhood presentation by a GRTL staffer to learn just how far down Western Civilization has sunk, creating human-animal hybrids in the laboratory, using human embryos for research which always causes their death, and other affronts to human life and dignity.
On the positive side, I’d encourage someone considering becoming a chapter leader to attend an event held by an existing chapter.
Many people are politically frustrated; they want things to be different in various ways but despair of what actually can be done. The energy and excitement of actually doing something, engaging with real people, can be contagious. Even when and where our message is met with indifference or hostility, if we ourselves have been humble and winsome in our approach, we have done our job, we have carried the ball down the field as far as it can be carried, so we can go home with a light heart.
Dan Segal, DeKalb Co. Chapter Leader
Rachel Krause, Newsletter Coordinator