What the Pro-Life Movement Needs

The Sisters of Life, Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, Serrin Foster, and others weigh in

Tomorrow is January 22, which will mark 49 years since Roe vs. Wade was enacted in the United States, legally protecting a woman’s ability to procure an abortion.

Some of the smartest, most charismatic, most experienced, most loving women I look up to have been trying to end abortion for decades. Some have only been in the movement for a few years. But the constant in-fighting of the pro-life movement has, in my opinion, hindered our efforts to end the genocide against the unborn.

That’s why I asked a diverse group of pro-life workers—who vote differently, look differently, and spend their days differently—to share their answer to the question, What does the pro-life movement need?

Not all of these women are Catholic, but all of them are passionate about human rights in the womb.

One opinion I don’t have here that I wish I did was that of a post-abortive woman. To hear one woman’s experience with abortion, feel free to listen to our episode featuring a post-abortive woman describing her experience. Another opinion I find in need of elevation is that of a birth mother (some prefer the term first mother) who placed their child for adoption. Listen to a podcast episode with that experience here—I specifically found Martha’s experience with the church when she found herself with an unexpected pregnancy something we MUST address.

I'm not a fan of personal attacks. I'm all in favor of sharp rebuttals on merits (and demerits) of arguments. Let me know in the comments where you see wisdom or error in these responses. Speak with love and gentleness, as St. Peter directed us to. - Claire

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Serrin Foster

President of Feminists for Life

So much of what we need to do next will depend on the decision that the U.S. Supreme Court hands down in June after hearing Dobbs v. Jackson. If the court overturns Roe completely, we will have 50 states, D.C., and territories that will be battling out abortion laws as well as federal laws that deal with resources and support. Either way, we will need to reach women earlier, which is what Feminists for Life of America is doing through both our College Outreach Program, components of which we have shared widely to establish pregnancy resources and teach our original research on pro-life feminist history, and go younger with our Girls Deserve Better™ effort to teach teens and young women that they are Forever Priceless℠.

Meanwhile, we need ongoing support for women who have had children, since most abortions are performed on women who already have dependents. And poverty drives this, especially among women of color. Our helpsite, WomenDeserveBetter.com, is growing to reach women through all their lives. Reaching women at risk of violence, including abortion, is part of what we need to do. Reaching the future leaders in all fields is the other. Then, we must in unison tell legislators that women deserve better® than abortion and redirect our energies in schools, workplaces, and society as a whole to resources and support.

If teens and women truly understood that they are Forever Priceless, that will translate to the value of themselves as well as the unborn child. This is true for every generation to come.

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Ogechi Akalegbere

Catholic speaker and podcast host

I remember my first March for Life. I was a senior in high school and went with my church youth group via bus to DC. I felt pride in being surrounded with fellow young Catholics standing up for life. As a cradle Catholic, I understood why the March was important. It was a physical witness against the Roe v Wade Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal. At that age, I understood the concept of what it meant to be pro-life mearly as a stance on singular issues such as euthanasia, the death penalty, and abortion. I would come to realize that womb to tomb is nuanced and not as simple as holding a stance. As I grew in my faith and participation in social justice movements I noticed the same ferver against abortion was lacking for other pro-life related issues. When I shared my faith and my pro-life viewpoints I often had to bring evidence of having a consistent life ethic that went beyond talking points and stances. The broader pro-life movement was and still is missing nuance and consistency. 

The first principle of Catholic Social Teaching states that the life and dignity of the human person is sacred. From conception to natural death, that life has a value that should be upheld. That first principle also calls for us to avoid war and to oppose the death penalty. This principle is foundational to all the others following. Those principles speak to the dignity of human existence as families, workers and our rights and responsibilities to engage in solidarity to those across different backgrounds. The term, “consistent ethic of life”, popularized by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin is an ideology based on Catholic Social Teaching. While abortion legality and the growing feasibility internationally of euthanasia threatens this foundational principle, the pro-life movement needs to shine a brighter light on the nuanced issues that denigrate the inherent dignity of humans, especially those in the margins. It must also use its power to protect the sacredness of life in all phases through programs and policies. 

As a Black Catholic who has spent many years of working for or volunteering with those in the margins I have seen the fruits of a consistent life ethic. The same activism seen every January marching against legalized abortion can be seen in the organization of marches, the implementation of social movements, and the creation of community-based organizations calling for fare pay for laborers, for dignity for immigrants regardless of documentation, for safety nets that support mothers who choose life, for equity in healthcare, for the abolish of systems that disproportionately denigrate the dignity of groups of persons. 

What does that consistent ethic look like? It means as Chis Christie stated, “fighting for a person's life at all stages, no matter how complicated or messy that person's life gets". Whether that person is on death row, an addict, experiencing racism, or a refugee who crossed many borders to come to our country. When the focus is seen to only be on abortion and not on the rise of capital punishment, or the decrease in affordable childcare that serves lower income parents, or the inequity of vaccine access, or the silence regarding the sexual abuse of migrant children in detention centers a message of inconsistency is sent. Silence on pro-life issues by the pro-life moment speaks volumes. It speaks to a narrative that a life is worthy to be birthed but not lived with dignity, especially if life deals you messy circumstances. Lives are lost on the border, lost in jail cells, lost to addiction and suicide. Silence on these nuanced issues harm lives and families. The world notices, students I have the honor of catechizing notice this silence and inconsistency. As Catholics called to love our neighbor as Christ loved us, a consistent life ethic should draw us away from mere charity or politicking and towards solidarity and justice for those marganilized.

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Leah Jacobson

Founder and CEO of the Guiding Star Project

For the Pro-life movement in America to be truly successful, we must convince women that their fertile and pregnant bodies are not and never were the problem. 

At a moment when it seems like we’re on the verge of victory with a possible pro-life ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health expected in June of this year, it is tempting to think that abortion will fade into the reccesses of our memory and will no longer be the polarizing issue that it currently is. Many pro-life advocates have focused their energy and attention solely on overturning Roe v. Wade, signaling the end of over four decades federal abortion on demand.  However, now is not the time to relax our efforts. Even if the Dobbs ruling upholds the Mississippie abortion 15 week ban, and even if it extends abortion restrictions by bouncing it back to the state level to govern, the root problem of abortion will remain. 

I think many pro-lifers will realize that the battle has been much bigger, more complex, and requires a longer gameplan than simply overturning Roe. 

What has brought us to the place of women shouting and rallying for the “right” to an abortion has been the result a long campaign of indoctrination to all women about our very identities. Generations of us have been convinced that our happiness, fulfillment, and success are in direct competition with motherhood and our fertility. If we want to see the next generation of young women question and reject abortion, we must convince them that there is nothing wrong with their fertile female bodies. We must get on board with supporting laws and policies that make space for women in the corporate world as mothers. Children must become an ordinary part of the world outside the home and an expected part of workers lives, not extraordinary accommodations. We need to be removing shame and stigma surrounding women’s healthcare issues. There shouldn’t be secrets about our menstrual cycles and menopause. Breastfeeding should elicit a yawn due to its normality in our society. 

Until the day comes that every little girl receives fertility education as part of her puberty talk and every lillte boy understands that fertility and family planning is a shared responsility for both men and women, we will not see the pro-life movement cross the finish line of creating an abortion free culture. It starts at a very young age with telling young people how good they were created, and it matures when they can apply that principle to all those around them, including the unborn humans who are created as a result of healthy fertile bodies performing as they were created to. 

Until shame is removed from the natural functions of women’s bodies, pregnancy and fertility are destigmatized, and women understand that it is our culture that must change to accomodate their bodies (not the other way around), we will not achieve a culture where abortion is unthinkable. Even with Roe overturned, we’ll see destination “abortion tourism” sprout up in the “aboriton safe states” and we’ll see our country further divided. We’ll see abortion pills going through the USPS as frequently as junk mail if women do not value and protect their own health. 

It’s time for the pro-life movment to invest in the healthcare and education industires so that women will come to truly understand their superpowers and know the truth deep down inside that their bodies, their babies, were never the problem. It is a world that sees them as disposable that is the problem. The truth is that female fertility, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and babies are wonderful gifts that only women can give our world. 

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Dr. Monique Ruberu

OBGYN

We need to understand the urgency of the situation. It’s easy to get lost in the numbers. 10,000 babies a year in downtown Philadelphia—in just two clinics. What can one person do facing numbers like that? We can remember that our God can change hearts. Remember that every single life saved is not just one life but the beginning of hundreds to follow in future generations. Remember that every moment spent in prayer for this issue is not wasted. 

The pro life movement needs to make sure that every sidewalk outside of every abortion center has at least one person praying and offering resources at every hour that the centers are open. This is a spiritual warfare that must be fought with love, prayer, fasting and compassion. Every empty hour sends a resounding message that we don’t care to be there, that innocent humans dying is not that important as soccer, or sleeping in, or whatever else. The women entering when the sidewalk is empty has nobody to offer her prayer, love and options. We miss a key opportunity to minister to her and her child. 

We must do a better job helping these women after they choose life. We need to offer them true support to walk with a group of women who will be their community, family and friends. We need to offer them something completely different from where they were when they chose abortion. They need job training that will allow them to support a family. They need nutritional counseling so they understand how to treat the temple God gave them. They need to truly encounter the Lord through all of us. They likely need spiritual and psychological support and mentoring from people who are rooted in the faith. My fear is that many women choose life, receive a baby shower, but they never find real community that helps them choose chastity going forward. They may get diapers, and clothes, but are they truly accepted into a community of people and shepherded in the way of the Lord? 

We must remember that every soul on the sidewalk and inside the centers was created by God. We have to pray for them and choose to love them despite their anger and resentment toward us. 

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Destiny Herndon - De La Rosa

Founder and President of New Wave Feminists

The movement spends a lot of time, energy, and resources on making abortion illegal - basically, cutting off supply, without truly addressing demand. The problem is it’s 2022, and women have a lot of options when it comes to terminating a pregnancy. I know that’s an overwhelming thought, but the sooner we accept this reality, the sooner we can start working towards actual solutions.

I think it will take a two pronged strategy. First, we must humanize the child in the womb. This comes through education, not shock tactics. We must show the powerful images of beautifully intact preborn children and educate the masses on gestational development so the abortion industry can no longer push the lie that it’s merely a “clump of cells.” We also need true reproductive education, so that young people understand how their bodies actually work.

Second, we must resource parents well. This goes beyond simply providing baby supplies. The number one thing most individuals who contact me in crisis pregnancies need is housing. That’s a big ask, but if we reallocated the money we spent on political campaigns towards things like housing, childcare, and transportation, I truly believe we would see the abortion rate drop tomorrow, regardless of laws. Right now the focus is on making abortion illegal, when I think we should be working towards making it unthinkable and unnecessary. 

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Sr. Josephine Garrett

Sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth

What does the “pro life movement” need in order to save more lives and find more success? I place the words in quotes because I think one of the key things that limits success within the work is that we don’t see and hear often enough in mainstream Catholic media about the activities that are making the most impact for families. In our Church, we almost have a hunger for Catholic celebrities and generating energy around these identified celebrities and their hot takes becomes the bulk of the “effort.” The movement becomes hollow and in name only as we place so much energy on these personalities and their podcasts and videos and media content, where in reality, simple stories of real life women who are struggling, stories of real life ministers whose boots are on the ground carry the same weight the first hand stories of the early disciples did when they spoke of what Jesus had done for them. I think we’ve drifted way too far from the witness model of the early Church and need to ask ourselves how many lasting conversions really come from speeches made from the ivory towers of Catholic celerity. 

I also think that pro life ministry is starved for unity. We also have a thirst for internal debates in our Church. This rite or that rite, this cassock or no cassock, this habit or no habit. We allow this to flood the pro life lens as well. Who would have ever thought there could be a debate about the value of a baby’s life and the value of the life of a man on death row? Who would have ever thought the same people who march for babies wouldn’t see a need to speak up for a man being sent to receive a lethal injection or a man killed in broad daylight by a police officer? Who would have ever thought we would have arrived at a place where we were parceling out the difference in the value of those lives? Who would have ever thought we would allow ourselves to take on such arrogant mindsets as to consider ourselves wise enough to decide what series of events (poor choices, criminal history, innocently waiting to be born in a womb) reduces or increases the tragedy of lost life? For “have you comprehended the breadth of the earth? Tell me if you know it all.” (Job 38:18) We must thirst for unity. Imagine the blow the pro life movement could make if all those hearts, the heart that cries the cries that babies were never able to cry, feels the depravity of a world who trades killing for killing with death penalties, that mourns lives that others said had no value in infirmity and deserved euthanasia, or the heart that is weary of long and old racial injustice that has taken too many lives with far too little notice, if all those hearts marched towards and united against the culture of death, evil would tremble and flee. This is my prayer for those who commit themselves to pro life work - that they may be one. 

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Sam Povlock

Founder, CEO, and Editor in Chief of FemCatholic

"My body, my choice," is the well-worn cornerstone of the pro-choice movement in America. And yet, any pro-lifer would tell you that the problem is not with choice over one's body, it's that there is actually more than one body involved in abortion. Two bodies are involved and two human beings with equal dignity. 

Then why do we only ever hear about one body - about one half of the relationship - from either side? 

A half-truth is, in fact, a lie. Said another way, a truth that's incomplete is not actually true, at all. 

So any time a pro life group or person advocates for the dignity of unborn humans under the premise of all human life being valuable and worthy of unconditional love and support, we expect them to also advocate for women. 

In order to find more success, the pro-life movement must consistently tell the truth. Not just the truth about abortion and the baby's body, but about abortion and the woman's body. Pro-life people need to focus on women and the unconditional love and support women need. Paid maternity leave, flexible work, and accessible childcare are among the bare essentials pro-life groups should be leading coonversations on in order to support women. We must tell the truth about what it means to be a woman and what it takes to raise a child in America.

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Sr. Mary Grace SV

Sister of Life

Every human life is of inestimable value. Whether it's weeks old and hidden in the womb, or decades long and preparing for a new beginning in eternity, life will always be worthy of a movement to uphold its value. Our task is not so much to succeed, but to let the success and gift that each human life is to flourish.

To be part of the pro-life movement is to have received a summoning, a call within us to respond to the current threat against the wonder of human life. Our response is not a frenzied preoccupation with programs and plans of attack. It is, first and foremost, the proclamation of a good worth standing up for, no matter what its situation.

Your life is sacred. Every one of us is here because we are loved by a God who wants us simply to be. We can feel a pressure to do more, achieve more, save more, but our worth doesn’t depend on doing more. Your life is enough because you are here. We have been created with the imprint of God Himself and and even more wonderfully, we have been redeemed. No matter what we have done, in Christ we are invited to receive His infinite love and mercy that restores everything.

The pro-life movement needs every one of us to renew our gratitude for the gift of life and the gift of starting again in Christ, beginning with ourselves and then with each person we meet. Let us renew our prayer for life and proclaim that life is good, no matter what. And one heart at a time, every person wants to hear this good news too.

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On My Nightstand 

Here are some things I’ve been reading lately that have made me think!

• The Women’s March by Jennifer Chiaverini: If they put all of my bookish desires in a lab, it would spit out “let’s write a novelization of Alice Paul and Ida B. Wells planning a women’s march”. Loving this one!

• Freedom in an Age of Fear: If you aren’t paying attention to women’s rights being eroded by gender ideology, now’s the time to start. “When a biological male who has enjoyed the full benefits of male puberty—larger cardiovascular system, 40% more upper body muscle mass, more fast-twitch muscle fiber, more oxygenated blood—decides after three seasons on the men’s team to compete as a woman and smashes the records of the top female swimmers in this country, that is not valor. That’s vandalism.”

• Who Gets Abortions in America: I found this incredibly interesting + informative. If we’re going to end abortion, it behooves us to know who is looking to procure the procedure most often.

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  In case you missed these Letters:

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  • Emmanuel, God With Us - for everyone

  • Answering Questions About Purity Culture + Pronouns - for subscribers