The political argument and what is reported in the news regarding abortion is, in a word, heartbreaking.

This topic tends to polarize instead of looking for long-term solutions. People go to their respective corners – quickly – and shout at each other.

Worse yet, they shut each other out.

Why? Because this really isn’t a debate about changing an opinion or attitude. This goes much deeper into challenging a person’s beliefs and changing our culture.

For those who truly believe in life, what really is at stake in this conversation requires much more than words. As I type these words on a keyboard, I realize the irony: that pro-life advocates simply can’t defend the innocent by typing on a keyboard.

No, recent arguments on the left have moved beyond “safe, legal, and rare” into the realm of a governor saying: “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired.”

A spokesperson for Gov. Ralph Northam later tried to clarify that the remark wasn’t about infanticide, but some pro-choice advocates have pretty much jumped the shark into openly supporting infanticide.

The time for words is really over. The pro-life movement must act.

Proponents need to truly support life through volunteering and fundraising for organizations like the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Tidewater or Virginia’s Kids Belong.

And there are plenty of opportunities that present themselves for action now.

Crisis Pregnancy Center is a non-profit that exists to support women who are unprepared for pregnancy, including offering counseling – on all options, including abortion recovery, parenting classes, call centers, ultrasounds and more. In 2017, the organization reported it was able to save more than 686 babies from being aborted.

The center has a 33-year record of success in Hampton Roads, existing because there was an obvious need to offer women an alternative to and information about abortion. They have proven time and again that if women are provided support, love and encouragement, a life will be saved.

Over the next few weeks, it is holding its annual Walk for Life at City Park in Chesapeake, on the Boardwalk in Virginia Beach and at the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk. This is an opportunity to visibly show your support for life and help them with their mission. You can find out more about the walk by visiting cpcfriends.org/walk.

In this regard, I will be walking the walk vice just talking the talk. I have walked for CPC on the Boardwalk in the past. This year, I am walking at the Virginia Zoo.

Another option is to foster a child. Despite recent news, foster care is an outstanding way to help a child who has been neglected, is among our most vulnerable, and simply a victim of circumstance.

Recent legislation passed in the General Assembly to reform the foster care system should make fostering a child focused on where it should be – care and compassion.

According to Virginia’s Kids Belong (vakidsbelong.org), a non-profit that advocates for fostering and adoption, there are thousands of kids in the foster care system in Virginia. Hundreds are never adopted and “age out.” Of these kids, the financial costs per child alone exceed $300,000 in social welfare and 60 percent of social workers leave foster care within the first year due to burnout, according to the group.

My friend Eve Marie Gleason and her husband, Ryan, of Loudoun have fostered four kids.

“I choose to foster kids because kids matter,” she told me. “It’s that simple. Being a foster parent isn’t easy. It changes your life, changes you. It’s hard and inconvenient. It means choosing loss and heartache, dealing with difficult adults, and parenting kids who have been through things nobody should have to face ever.

“It also means being the voice of hope in their life, the stable constant who teaches them how to make healthy choices and provides the unconditional love they need to have a chance to flourish. We don’t always feel like it, but foster parents make a tremendous difference.”

One thing Gleason also mentioned is that, even if a person or couple is not able to foster or adopt, they still can immeasurably support the foster parents through gift cards or just being available to help out with babysitting, moral support or preparing a meal. At virginiakidsbelong.org, there are opportunities listed to “lean in” where everyone can get involved from supporting foster families, birth families, teens, workers and more.

“Not everyone can foster or adopt, but everyone can care and be part of the solution to Virginia’s foster care crisis,” Janet Kelly, president of Virginia Kids Belong and an adoptive mom, wrote in an email. “This crisis is solvable if servant leaders from communities across the commonwealth step up to help vulnerable children and families.”

While conservatives can’t keep the left from outrageous statements and inconceivable policy positions, we can continue to promote a culture of life.

It’s as simple as making a commitment and taking constructive action. By making a commitment, the culture will change. In time, words and legislation may, too.

This column appears in The Princess Anne Independent News

From setting your kids up for success, ownership, to random socialism – Monopoly has it all.

We have our disagreements as Virginians, we don’t need folks from out-of-state breaking our laws and making it worse.

You remove one official from office, they all have to go.