POST-ROE DISCIPLESHIP: THE CALL TO HELP WOMEN WHO CHOOSE LIFE

Karen Dill, Spiritual Director

.MY PRO-LIFE ADVOCACY BEGAN IN JANUARY OF 1973 WHEN THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT PASSED ROE V. WADE MAKING ABORTION LEGAL IN OUR NATION. I wasn’t a Catholic convert back then, but I believed on a gut level that snuffing out the lives of unborn children was unfair. Several decades later, I became an activist. I accompanied high school students to Washington, D.C., to participate in some cold and rainy Marches for Life. I examined politicians’ platforms for pro-life leanings. I served on the Holy Angels board, advocating for the lives of the developmentally disabled. I became an Embrace Grace leader in my parish, actively aiding women facing unplanned pregnancies. And then, in June of 2022, I rushed to daily Mass at St. John Berchmans to give thanks that Roe v. Wade had finally been repealed.

One day on social media I read a comment that went something like this: Those pro-lifers are really just antiabortion. They don’t lift a finger to help women who choose to keep their babies. I immediately felt defensive but had to admit that the writer makes a good point. If we as Catholic Christians don’t act on our convictions about the sanctity of all human life, from conception to natural death, where does that leave us in this post-Roe era?

In the Diocese of Shreveport, we have so many opportunities to get involved in helping women who have chosen to keep their babies despite finding themselves in sometimes desperate circumstances. We can volunteer at Mary’s House, Catholic Charities, Gabriel’s Closet, or Embrace Grace groups. We can attend the annual ProLife Banquet. But we can also reach out on a personal level by praying for, supporting and not judging those women who cross our paths in our daily lives. Sometimes they are sitting on the pew next to us in Mass.

During the years that I met with pregnant women in Embrace Grace groups, I often heard heartbreaking stories of the criticism and rejection they encountered in their own churches. Their stories made me think of the words Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you.” Instead of chastising or condemning, this ministry tries hard to help women make better choices in the future by learning their identities in Christ. We pampered them, loved on them, flooded them with scriptures, fed them home-cooked meals, hosted baby showers and followed up with them after they gave birth. Our team still hears from many of them today, months or even years after they attended our meetings. We have seen the fruits of our labors in the healthy babies and mothers we came to know on a personal basis. I have never felt discipleship on a deeper level.

As I read and study the Bible, I can’t for the life of me find a verse of scripture that supports what the pro-choice proponents call “reproductive rights.” I often, however, read or hear verses that jump out at me with a pro-life message. Psalm 139: 13-15 “You created every part of me; You put me together in my mother’s womb…when I was growing there in secret, you saw me before I was born.” Or 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 “Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; he bought you for a price.” And the clincher, Deuteronomy 30: 19 “I am now giving you the choice between life and death…and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make.” Choose life.