Says Linda Wood of Yellowknife, N.W.T., “I’m always amazed at what one person can do.” A case in point is her 22-year-old daughter Kiely Williams. As a science student at Sir John Franklin Public High School, Kiely often challenged some of the assumptions and statements of her teachers, especially in biology class. She was well equipped to do so, having grown up in a pro-life household. At one time, the pregnancy crisis line was in their home.
“My teacher, Mr. Smith (not his real name) favoured Darwinism, and was strongly influenced by the American humanist Carl Sagan,” she recalls. Their theories are largely incompatible with a pro-life philosophy.
On such topics as human reproduction, Kiely often questioned the views of her teacher, “but not in a confrontational way,” says her mother. “Whereas most of us would try to convince Mr. Smith that he was wrong, Kiely would ask, ‘Why do you believe that?’ She would truly listen to the response, and she would also say, ‘This is what I believe, and here’s why.'”
Often, Mr. Smith would give Kiely a book to read – something by Sagan, for example. She would accept it on condition that he would read one of her pro-life books. “Then,” says Linda, “when she would come across some particularly anti-life statement, together we would map out counter-arguments for it.”
These exchanges generated lively discussions in the classroom, that frequently continued among the students in the cafeteria and corridors.
Sometimes, Mr. Smith would say, “I seldom listen to people who believe what you believe. But you make me think.” Kiely added, “Although we had totally opposing world views, our relationship was friendly and mutually respectful.”
One would expect her relationship with the school to end when she graduated in 1999 and went off to Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C. But she was not about to let that happen.
Like all pro-lifers, Kiely knows it’s much harder to maintain the fiction that the developing fetus is just a blob of tissue when faced with actual life-sized models of the child at different stages of pre-natal development.
In the spring of 2002, she accomplished something the local pro-life group could never have done. In the role of an alumna, and aided by the relationship with her former biology teacher, she donated a set of fetal models to the school’s science department. Why? “The biology program already had a lovely plant model for teaching the details of plant reproduction. But there were no models related to human reproduction,” Kiely says.
At almost $1,000, the fetal models were beyond a student’s budget. So Yellowknife Right to Life provided them for Kiely, who in turn donated them to the school. The ceremony took place in the presence of her teacher friend, and the school’s purchasing agent who, knowing the cost, was appropriately impressed. They even gave her a chance to address the students.
Kiely no longer sits in the classrooms of Sir John Franklin High, but she has ensured that her belief in the humanity of the developing child will persist there.
That could have been the end of the story, but there’s more. Kiely Williams is a strong believer in “the educational value of the visual.” This year she made and donated two sets of plexiglass display cases for the fetal models: one to a Catholic high school, and one to her own.
“The models will accomplish more when they are seen frequently, not locked in a cupboard. In these clear plexiglass cases, they can be permanently displayed, and seen by other classes not (yet) in the biology class.”
Kiely feels strongly about the abortion promoters’ claim to be pro-choice. They suppress so much key information that women cannot possibly make informed choices, she says. That’s why it’s important to educate women through visuals.
She says, “It may be a long time before we succeed in changing Canada’s abortion laws. In the meantime, we must save babies by educating women and girls about the issues, so that if they ever face an abortion decision, they will know it’s a real baby they are talking about. If we can’t change the laws right now, we can at least try to reach hearts, by changing the level of knowledge.”
Currently, Kiely is preparing to write admission exams for medical school. One of her major motives for becoming a doctor is to reach girls and save babies from abortion.
Her mother Linda adds, “We don’t want people to say, ‘That person was amazing.’ Instead, it is really important that they say, ‘This shows the kinds of things every one of us can do, to make a difference where we live here and now.'”
