With the Texas Heartbeat law having taken effect early in September, a flurry of Pro-Life state legislation drafted, and the upcoming Dobbs Supreme Court case, politically progressive Roman Catholic politicians have resumed throwing around the debunked “pro-birther” label to tar the Pro-Life movement.
First used to describe doctrinally sound Catholics who oppose abortion and are active in the Pro-Life movement, the pro-birther label was coined by Catholic nun and Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister who served as president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
In 2004, Chittister popularized the now widely used term in an interview with Bill Moyers. The premise of Chittister’s argument that pro-choice Catholics still use today is that the Pro-Life movement cares only about life in the womb but not the baby or the mother once the baby is born. To Chittister, being truly Pro-Life means supporting free healthcare, free education, and an endless cornucopia of big government social welfare programs.
October is the official “Respect Life” month in the Catholic Church. The Respect Life initiative encapsulates what it truly means to be Pro-Life all year long for faithful Catholics. Instituted and run by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB), this initiative sets aside the month to reflect more deeply upon threats to the lives of the unborn and the born, educate groups and individuals on how to cherish, defend, protect the most vulnerable, and provide struggling pregnant mothers with the resources they need to continue with their pregnancies.
The initiative provides parishes, clergy members, Catholic schools, and individual laypeople with the actionable resources.These resources take the form of prayers, further explanations of the Evangelium Vitae encyclical, and leader tool kits for clergy, schools, and ministries to implement the “Respect Life” initiative in their parishes. Archdioceses and parishes honor Respect Life month differently but each archdiocese/parish is working towards the same goal of honoring the mother and her unborn child.
For example, the Archdiocese of Denver recently engaged in a Eucharistic procession around Colorado’s largest abortion facility, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Stapleton, Colorado. Archdiocesan Respect Life community coordinator Maria Elisa Olivas said that participants commented on “how peaceful and loving is the strength that Jesus brings to us when we process in a place of death.” This is just one example of the powerful events that occur during Respect Life month in parishes and dioceses across the country.
Among the most critical aspects of this initiative are the resources it has developed aimed at defending the Hyde Amendment that prevents federal taxpayer funds from being used to pay for abortions. As a majority of Congressional Democrats seek to pass a budget for the new fiscal year without the Hyde Amendment rider, the USCCB has created a website dedicated solely to educating Catholics on how to engage with Congress to stop this radical policy action. USCCB’s resources encourage Catholics to defend the Hyde Amendment through a petition and the publication of flyers for parishes to put in their weekly bulletins and monthly newsletters.
As this initiative begins this month, the Chair of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities Archbishop Joseph Naumann released a statement highlighting the steps the Catholic Church takes to not only help defend and cherish the unborn but mothers in crisis pregnancies. He summed up the initiative’s goals succinctly:
“Like St. Joseph we are called to care for those God has entrusted to us-especially vulnerable mothers and children. We can follow in the footsteps of St. Joseph as protectors by advocating against taxpayer-funded abortion…We can imitate his care and provision by helping to start ‘Walking with Moms in Need’ in our parishes, ‘walking in the shoes’ of mothers experiencing a difficult pregnancy, especially low-income mothers in our communities.”
Walking with Moms in Need is another initiative established by the USCCB to help both the unborn child and their mother. This initiative is often implemented at the individual parish level and involves supporting local pregnancy centers financially and through volunteer work. USCCB has developed resources to help parishes do just that and have even created templates for documenting the inventory of pregnancy resource centers and diagnostic tools to address the centers’ most critical areas of need.
A brief overview of the support that these initiatives provide shows the lengths American Catholics have undertaken to both care for the unborn and assist pregnant mothers financially and spiritually. While abortion is a threat to the dignity that the Church seeks to uphold and abortion is a practice the Church vigorously speaks out against, mothers are also the focus of the Church’s Pro-Life agenda.
The old canard brought up by liberal politicians and progressive Catholics that somehow because some Catholics don’t support the same fiscal policies, they are only pro-birth and not Pro-Life is a lie. It is a convenient deflection to avoid addressing the fact that abortion is murder, and the Pro-Life movement is heeding the word of God and abiding by the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Comment by David on October 11, 2021 at 2:18 pm
We all know how the Catholic Church values the safety of children.
Comment by Tom on October 11, 2021 at 5:32 pm
“To Chittister, being truly Pro-Life means supporting free healthcare, free education, and an endless cornucopia of big government social welfare programs.”
Let me say just two things: (1) IF these programs actually worked and helped mothers and children, no one would be more in favor of them than I. However, we’ve had all the Great Society programs since 1965–56 years. How well have they worked? They have all been dismal failures. THAT is why we don’t support these programs.
(2) Sister Joan and others are apparently unaware of things like crisis pregnancy centers and other helps for mothers and children that the article mentions. She is also apparently unaware of Christian ADOPTION agencies that have long lists of childless parents waiting to give a new baby a loving home with a married mother and father–which I think all reputable sociological studies show is the best possible environment for a child.
The ignorance and bias of Sister Joan and others is getting tiresome.
Comment by Yes David... on October 12, 2021 at 10:19 am
Yes it does David, except when the same progressive pro-death people in the hierarchy decided to ignore God and import people into the clergy who harmed children.
I took seminary courses with people studying for the priesthood, to make such a gratuitous slap in their face because you are pro-death and against the pro-life movement is disgusting.
Comment by Steve on October 12, 2021 at 12:01 pm
And to think David was just complaining about ad hominems. Wow.
Comment by Diane on October 12, 2021 at 2:38 pm
The RC is pro forced-birth, regardless of the life of the mother or the reality that her children risk losing their mom.
My aunt suffered serious complications before the birth of her fifth child. She was forty years old. Her Catholic OB-GYN advised – for her safety and life – that she have her tubes tied, an in-patient surgical procedure often performed after a C-section birth. Her OB-GYN believed another pregnancy would end her life. Her husband, my uncle, was recently diagnosed with lymphoma. Permanent contraception was the surest way she’d be around to parent her children, one of whom was obviously an infant at the time she’d have the tubal ligation.
Those so-called “pro-life” Catholic Healthcare providers at her local community Catholic-owned hospital refused the procedure because it effectively ends the possibility of conception. In my aunt’s case, which is not an isolated one, they opted for further pregnancies over the very real risk to a mother’s life. They also opted to ignore the professional medical advice over one of their own doctors.
I have no respect for this Catholic doctrine. To intentionally decide to needlessly place small children at grave risk for losing a parent isn’t Christ-like. Clearly it’s Satanic.
Comment by Steve on October 12, 2021 at 4:49 pm
I dunno Diane, I’d say advocating for slaughtering the unborn is a lot more satanic that you mom’s inability to persuade a Catholic hospital to tie her tubes a half century ago. Why didn’t she just go somewhere else if it was so important?
Comment by David on October 12, 2021 at 5:14 pm
“And with respect to infant mortality, the U.S. ranks 33 out of 36 Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations. In 2018, while infant mortality reached an all-time low in the U.S., at 5.9 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, still more than 21,000 infants died. Compared to countries with a similar GDP, the U.S. infant mortality rate is much higher. France and the U.K., for example, have 3.8 deaths per 1,000 live births. The infant and maternal mortality statistics are a sobering reminder of the relative degree to which public health is neglected in the U.S.” —Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2021/08/01/us-maternal-and-infant-mortality-more-signs-of-public-health-neglect/?sh=34d7c25e3a50
Where is the outcry over this?
Comment by Steve on October 12, 2021 at 6:51 pm
So that justifies you promoting murder?
Comment by David on October 13, 2021 at 6:10 am
It is a matter of calling our hypocrisy. Right to life seems to end at birth for some people. Of course, helping infants might include providing benefits to “those people” and we all know how unpopular that is in some circles.
Since both the Methodist and South Baptists supported abortion rights prior to being taken over by conservatives, the matter seems more political than moral.
Comment by Steve on October 13, 2021 at 7:20 am
Diane, when they’re right, they’re right.
When you attack them when they’re right, you’re wrong.
Stop going off topic and making excuses for murder.
You are effectively promoting the endless murder of millions of the unborn.
To that you compare the loss of a few tens of thousands who slip through the cracks of our crazy health care system. That’s a very complicated problem that Catholic health providers do battle with every day while you sit in front of your computer doing nothing but complaining that they’re not perfect.
Comment by p on October 16, 2021 at 7:22 am
Coming in late here, but David, are you aware that countries count infant mortality rates differently? France, for example, doesn’t count a birth as live until the infant reaches a week old.