And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (“yad vashem”) … that shall not be cut off.” (Isaiah 56:5)
Imagine a world without memorials or references to past human beings. No Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or Arch de Triumph. No heroes, no great leaders, nor saviors of humanity. In such a place, every generation believes they alone created the great civilizations about them. It would be as if all that came before had never even existed.
People can die twice that way – first by death, and then by mass forgetfulness. For that reason Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem was created, to acknowledge millions of Jewish persons as individuals. Refusing to minimalize them as merely a tragic throngs, they preserve family history, hopes and especially names of the dead. This is supremely important. Minimalizing persons into nameless units and rationalizing their annihilation is how real-time genocides are happening under our watch.
America’s Supreme Court justified mass murder in America at least twice, and one is ongoing. Both their Dred Scott and Roe vs. Wade rulings unleashed legal, political, social and spiritual battles. One culminated in a devastating war. The other hasn’t yet been settled, but the body count is soaring.
In effect, nine justices demanded that unborn children be disenfranchised, nameless and forgotten – with no more rights than meat products before and after death. Most of us disagreed with that dehumanization, but had no idea how to change it – or if it was even possible.
At least one man is convinced we can, beginning with the past.
Kevin Kenyon lives a workaday life in Bluffton, South Carolina, but God has given him an extraordinary vision. The married marketing consultant is a pro-life Catholic with two teenagers in Catholic schools. One day Kenyon met Ruben Coplo, a 3D architectural animation artist, and was quite impressed with a project of his. A local private high school planned new buildings and a football field, and the architect hired Coplo to create an animation of the anticipated finished state.
Almost immediately Kenyon grasped the vast potential of life-like architectural animation of this type beyond real estate development. Pondering potential businesses that may benefit from this type of animation, he described a vision which then struck him.
“I saw a beautiful place will rolling green fields and row after row of white crosses as far as the eye could see,” he said. “A place that didn’t exist in reality, but could ‘exist’ online for all to visit and see. A memorial to the unborn, a place to visually experience the magnitude of abortion while remembering that each and every baby that has been taken from us was an individual and should be remembered.”
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Pro-aborts realize the significance of these ceremonial acts of honor and fight them accordingly. Fr. Frank Pavone relates a gruesome story of 16,500 aborted babies discovered in a dumpster in Los Angeles in 1982. Seeking to bury them, Christians were met with fierce opposition and legal battles lasting three years by pro-death forces. It wasn’t enough just to kill these babies. Obviously it was intensely important to pro-abortionists that the babies be denied any importance, value, name or humanity after death. These are very sick creatures – but I suspect they would prefer to be considered men and women themselves.
Kenyon mentions a telling revision they were forced to make in that time. “You will notice that a few [still images] say ’56 Million Lives Lost’ under the statue of the angel holding the baby. We later changed it to 60 million.”
Kenyon attributes his inspiration to an annual act of commemoration at his church – placing 50 or 100 white crosses on the grounds to symbolize millions of U.S. abortions since 1973. Kenyon was always moved by the poignant sight, but he saw something even more compelling. “How powerful it would be if people saw millions of white crosses as far as the eye could see, over thousands of acres of green fields,” he envisioned.
Feeling “realistically it would never be built,” Kenyon embarked on the task in cyber-space, where anything is possible. He hired Coplo to make an animated version of his vision, assuming it would only take two to three months. The complex animation took an entire year, because Kenyon insisted on remaining true to his detailed vision. Coplo was committed to the task as well and stuck through to the end, even after Kenyon could no longer pay him. Both men feel the effort is worthwhile if even one life is saved.
Close to completion, Kenyon still had no host nor website for his “Remember the Unborn” memorial.” After seeing still images of his video, American Life League (ALL) stepped up to assist. Founder Judie Brown was so moved that she first showed the video from their site and helped to set up an interview with EWTN at the 2015 “March for Life.” Apparently it was quite convincing and lifelike even in its unfinished state. Kenyon and ALL even received messages from people asking where the memorial was located so they could visit.
Now “Remember the Unborn Memorial” at least has real estate on the Internet. Kenyon has high hopes for his project, that it will be more than just a substitute for statues and graves. “I hope that people will see the Memorial and will remember the unborn and say a prayer for a baby at risk,” he said, adding he fervently desires that “at some point, its visuals would have at least a small effect on a pregnant or future mom so they did not abort their baby.”
Kenyon, ALL and other contributors aren’t leaving the memorial to grow moss on its cyber-stones. Currently they’re working on several programs for schools. One allows students to remember one baby in the memorial with “flowers” and pray for a baby at risk. (I assume flowers are virtual and placed by the artist.) Their goal is to match each of the million babies aborted every year with someone who remembers them and also prays for a baby currently at risk.
“We have more than two million students in Catholic schools alone,” Kenyon emphasizes, as well as other Christian schools he hopes will join. Featuring this video only once in every school could have a profound impact on students who have a reservoir of surprising talents, energy and abilities. It could also reduce abortions that unfortunately occur even in the Christian families represented there.
“Remember the Unborn” has other projects in the works. “We are just a few weeks away from completing an online fundraising program schools can use to raise money for expenses to Washington D.C. for the March for Life,” Kenyon says. He intends to finesse the video with a pro-life friend from California “who is a great software and website developer who has done much work for Remember the Unborn.”
This is truly a family project. Kenyon credits the support and ideas of his wife Joellene as “a big part of this,” as well as his son and daughter. The Kenyon family is dedicated to the vision of ending abortion on demand in America, as well as creating a virtual “place” to support the grieving and honor its victims.
Killing one baby has huge implications, he pointed out. When looking into genealogy, Kevin found that the first Kenyon was Jordan de Kenyon, born in 1235 in England. It is estimated he now has 140 million descendants, including Kevin Kenyon.
The film “It’s a Wonderful Life” comes to mind when I dwell on the extermination of so many babies before even one little foot reached this world. The movie was fiction – but there’s no doubt millions of dead infants held potential blessings and benefits as much as any who survived almost a half-century of medical infanticide.
Remember the Unborn is now set up as a non-profit organization with hopes to save the most innocent, and honor the lost in the abortion wars.
People can visit Remember the Unborn and help their efforts, or contact Kevin Kenyon at [email protected]
