During his daily routine of prayer, a minister from Boston, Christ (rhymes with “mist”) Otto, imagined hundreds of red envelopes being sent to Washington with a message on the back of them: “This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.”

After envisioning this in late January, Otto sent out 120 e-mails to those who followed his ministry. That e-mail was then sent to others and since then, has made it around the nation. There are now several Facebook groups supporting the effort: one, which was created by Brian Porter from Houston, Texas, has over 240,000 members.

Porter was the one who came up with the idea of creating a specific day to send these letters, March 31, called Red Envelope Day. This is the day that everyone who is interested is supposed to send an empty red envelope addressed to Barack Obama at the White House with the same message Otto mentioned on the back.

Otto hopes that 50 million envelopes will be sent, which he said represents the amount of abortions since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

“If the capitol is flooded with so many letters that no one can deny it, I am hoping the image will be burned into Barack Obama’s mind that this is about human blood,” Otto said.

He said Obama has made some recent decisions which are against his belief of the right to life, including lifting the ban on giving foreign aid for abortions and the ban on embryonic stem cell research. But he said his effort is about something more than politics.

“This is about changing one man’s heart,” Otto said.

Brian Trachier, a senior majoring in meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, started one of the other Red Envelope Day Facebook groups. He said the message started in Boston and has since made it all over the country. It has also gone to other countries, including Canada and Australia.

The effort has even made it to BYU. Erica Berrett, a senior from Henderson, Nev., majoring in linguistics, plans to send out a red envelope. She said she hopes enough people will send envelopes that some sort of impact will be made.

Berrett said she doesn’t usually get involved with politics, but being a member of the LDS faith, which is against abortion in most circumstances, she said this seemed like a good way to protest.

“I like the idea of a more quiet protest,” she said. “I think they can even make more of an impact.”

Hyrum Salmond, a BYU senior from Pittsburgh, Pa., and president of the BYU Democrats, said it is hard to try and change people’s minds about abortion because most have already decided what they believe. He does not think Red Envelope Day will make much of an impact, but he said he thinks it’s great that Americans have the right to protest.

Skylar de Jong, a senior from Sandy majoring in political science and president of the BYU Republicans, is pro-life but thinks the Red Envelope Day protest has many flaws, including the leader’s vision for the movement, the purpose of the letters and the destination of the letters.

He also said if the envelopes were going anywhere they should be going to representatives because these are the people who make the laws, not the president.

“We as a society are giving the president too much power,” de Jong said. “The president’s purpose is not to make laws. Congressmen would be much more easily swayed because they are supposed to represent us.”

He also said 50 million envelopes are not going to change the president’s opinion of abortion, just like 50 million envelopes would not change his own opinion of abortion.

But many thousands think or at least hope this movement will do something. Otto said only about one percent of the e-mails he has been getting about Red Envelope Day have been negative. Many YouTube videos and Web sites have been made supporting this event and thousands of letters have already been sent.

Copyright Brigham Young University 30 Mar 2009