The Pro-Life Movement Needs a Retreat

I recently saw a tracking that found that articles about abortion and religion are currently just about the least popular on a website close to my heart. (You can probably guess.) Robert Kennedy Jr., UFOS, and artificial intelligence rate the highest. So I may have to consider asking RFK Jr. for an interview or applying to embed on an Elon Musk journey to Mars.

Not so fast, though. Here I am back to the bottom of the clickbait!

I bring this up because the fact is that people don’t trust . . . just about anyone. And the vote in Ohio about the constitutional-amendment process this week that was a precursor to a November abortion-radicalization vote is a symptom of and warning about this reality in the United States right now. If you don’t trust anyone, how are you going to trust them with the future of women and children and families? Relatively speaking, people don’t know some of the amazing people on the front lines of pro-life work, walking with women and children and families. And they see those of us opposed to abortion as extensions of institutions they don’t trust. I get why people at this point, hearing so many scare stories, want to have nothing to do with the politics of abortion. It’s miserable that we need politics and law, because it’s just about the worst place to be having these most intimate discussions about such an intimate violence. So many people are wounded and grieving and cannot even acknowledge it, because it’s said to be health care.

The Ohio vote this week just reminds me all over again of the pain. And how every headline and righteous campaign pours salt into open wounds. Abortion in America is a grave evil. But we cannot forget about the human suffering. And that people are lied to and victimized by decades of sexual-revolutionary values. (Mary Eberstadt writes wisely about this.)

The pro-life movement needs a retreat — as in a time for serious reflection about how to end abortion in America through renewed loving service and witness. Every single one of us who understands that it is the human-rights issue we are going to have to answer for needs to reflect on how we can be more creative, compassionate, and personal in radical ways, as people are more confused than ever. For a long time now we’ve been talking about how ultrasound technology has changed things. And it does, one on one. If an abortion-minded woman sees her baby and is loved on by someone who wants to help her and her baby flourish, it’s a game-changer for life. But, more broadly speaking, remember “Follow the science.” People don’t trust science and the scientists. So even what is clear, isn’t.

When the Dobbs decision came down last summer for real, I was in a room with a few hundred women, most of them under 30. We prayed, and I cautioned against celebration. Gratitude is one thing, but the work of walking with women and rebuilding family in America is only beginning anew.

If you’ve ever encountered me before, you have probably heard something about the Sisters of Life. They exist to help with that culture of life and civilization of love that John Paul II rallied people of faith about when he wrote his Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”). The Sisters are big into birthdays — I’ve been the recipient of that a time or two — in no small part because it is not rare for a woman they serve to have never had anyone celebrate her birthday. How can you know the value of life if no one has ever celebrated yours?

Last weekend, I was waiting in the lobby of a D.C. hotel around midnight for a Grubhub delivery. (I had been speaking and forgot to eat earlier.) Streams of young women walked past me for 20 minutes or so, going out clubbing. You can imagine their attire. These are women whom pro-lifers need to reach. I talked to a young woman recently who told me she and her pro-life friends pretty much kept their views quiet, aside from things they did together as a small pro-life club, because it was so foreign to most of her classmates — at the Catholic high school she just graduated from. The pro-life movement is not even reaching the Catholic ones in Catholic schools. And that’s not even a judgment on the school — a school can only do so much if families and the culture are hostile to pro-life views. Even the young people who go through Catholic schools likely think pro-life and/or people practicing religious faith are the last people they could turn to if they were pregnant. We need to be better, bolder, but with radical love and hospitality. (It would be something if every Catholic seventh-grade, eighth-grade, and high-school student in the NYC area could spend an afternoon with the Sisters of Life, for starters. And they are in Connecticut, Toronto, D.C., Denver, Philadelphia, and Phoenix, too.)

A smart politico friend of mine is convinced Dobbs ultimately does more harm than good because the culture wasn’t ready for it. The pro-life movement wasn’t even ready for it. Perhaps if all Christians were living the Beatitudes, we’d be ready for it. But then we are not, are we? Lives have been saved, so I can’t be where my friend is entirely, but he has a point. Which is why we need to be working even harder than we were before, imitating the saintly people who really do the messy work of love in field hospitals in every community in America. Start where you are. What more can you do? What can you communicate with more love to those who might most need to hear about what amazing things women are capable of with a little love and resources? And that men who are reliable and respectful are (a) possible and (b) at the start of stories of joy.

Anyway, over the weekend, during these last days and weeks of summer, it’s something to think about. We may not all get to go on a retreat, but we all need to do an examination of conscience. Do you even know what your local pregnancy-care center and maternity home is? Is there even one? Do you know there are people who never thought they’d be founding such things who have? Do the young people in your life know that to be a person of faith is to know we are all sinners? Do they know you will love them, whatever circumstances they find themselves in?

Voting right, having the right judges, winning and losing in politics is not enough. When people know we love them more than we want to convince them we’re right, they might just be open to what we have to offer.

And if you need a reboot for reflection, consider the Sisters of Life Into Life series. Or watch this video about their founding mother superior, Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, from last week:

I also wrote a little about recent remarks she made here.