Politics & Society
Virtual Adoption
Fearful right-to-lifers try a kinder, gentler tactic on the eve of the pro-choice Obama era
rw832@nyu.edu
Stuffed bears sit neatly in a row with butter-colored blankets and delicately folded pink and blue onesies. It’s all the trappings of a baby shower: department store boxes, bottles, pacifiers, stroller, baby food jars, an illustrated Winnie the Pooh.
All that’s missing is the mother to be.
The shower kicked off the first “spiritual adoption” campaign at Saint Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church in Avenel, New Jersey. St. Andrew’s parishioners agreed to “adopt” children by praying for them for nine months, asking God to spare the lives of fetuses that might be aborted. On Mother’s Day, they will donate the gifts to local charities for the poor and unwed mothers.
Fulton J. Sheen, the late Archbishop of Rochester, New York, came up with the idea of spiritual adoption shortly after abortion was legalized nationally in 1973. Ignored at the time, now the idea is one of several softer anti-abortion techniques rising in popularity across the country. Weary after decades of vitriolic battles and clinic blockades, and fearing the administration of pro-choice President-elect Barack Obama will encourage even greater acceptance of abortion, the anti-abortion movement is going gentle.
“The harshness of pro-life’s public face has softened tremendously in the last decade,” said David Garrow, a Cambridge University law professor who is an expert on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Dozens of activists interviewed in recent months said they hope a gentler approach will decrease number of abortions. More than 45 million abortions have been performed since the United States Supreme Court legalized it with Roe vs. Wade in 1973, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a research group. The new campaigners still hope to overturn Roe vs. Wade someday.
On a brisk October morning, Debbie Milford, a member of St. Andrew’s pro-life committee, rose to the pulpit. The sun streamed through stained glass, covering her in a kaleidoscope of colors. Seven years ago, as a middle-aged, single woman who had given up on becoming a mother, Milford decided to spiritually adopt, she told the churchgoers. Soon afterward, she decided to adopt in the conventional way. In a few months, an agency connected her to a young methadone addict who had been considering abortion, but had changed her mind. Thanks to her spiritual adoption, Milford said through tears, a life was saved.
Then Milford walked to a wicker bassinet decorated with ribbons and blankets in the back of the church. Some 230 parishioners filed by, placing inside white note cards emblazoned with small pictures of infants swaddled in pink or blue. These were their pledges “to spiritually adopt an unborn baby in danger of abortion.” Beside the basket stood Milford’s daughter, now six, clutching her mother’s hand.
It’s a jarring switch in tactics. In the 1980s, abortion clinic riots made headlines, as the militant group Operation Rescue tried to prevent abortions by blockading clinics and tormenting their clients and workers. Activists from the National Abortion Rights Action League, Planned Parenthood, and others “confronted pro-life forces at clinics, exchanging words and sometimes blows,” according to Paul Gilje, author of Rioting in America.
More than 4,000 Operation Rescue rioters were arrested for storming clinics, harassing their clients and throwing pig’s blood between 1988 and 1991. In 1994, Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibited the intimidation of anyone using or providing reproductive health services.
But pro-life activists say there’s good reason for a change in tactics. Joe Scheidler, national director of the Pro-Life Action League, worried that the Obama administration will usher in “the most hostile political environment we’ve ever known.” Softer-style grassroots activism “is the most effective way to meet that challenge.”
The Sisters of Life, a Roman Catholic order founded in 1991 by the late Archbishop of New York John Cardinal O’Connor, have also taken up this tactic, participating in peaceful anti-abortion masses and pro-life prayer vigils. Sister Mary Loretta, head of the group, also organized what she called a “Life Chain” outside a Manhattan Planned Parenthood office, where activists stood in prayer.
Nationally the movement continues as “40 Days for Life,” named after Biblical figures like Noah and Jesus, who underwent 40-day transformations, according to Sister Loretta. Each October, dubbed “Respect Life Month,” silent prayer vigils will happen outside clinics and participants will fast.
Campuses are another hotbed for the new soft pro-life movement. The major player today: University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where Carolina Students for Life fight for the rights of young parents. They are pushing for on-campus amenities for pregnant and parenting students, such as nearby housing, preferred parking and restroom baby-changing stations. In a dramatic action in 2006, the group represented every abortion that had taken place in the previous three days by laying 10,000 red roses on the quad.
Sisters of Life demonstrate at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.
Photo courtesy of Sisters of Life