College students speak out for life

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

Family and friends have helped college students embrace and share pro-life beliefs.
Fernanda Calix, a Worcester Polytechnic Institute junior, was affected by the grandfather she doesn’t remember.
Thomas Lamar, a WPI senior, was moved by a niece who died before birth.
Kate Wheeler, a junior at the College of the Holy Cross, imagined unborn siblings’ prayer requests.
These students are among members of college pro-life groups who planned to attend the March for Life in Washington, D.C., tomorrow.  
“My grandfather was a pediatrician,” said Miss Calix, who is a “cradle Catholic” and now president of the Students for Life chapter at WPI. He specialized with newborns in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, but died when she was one year old.
“I guess what most impacts me is, so many people share with me how he saved their child’s life,” during illness or a difficult pregnancy, Miss Calix said.
It has been important to her family to see every life as worth saving, she said; abortion is unthinkable.  
“Being pro-life helped lead me back to the Catholic faith,” said Mr. Lamar, past president of Students for Life at WPI and now president of the Newman Club there. When looking for people who respect the dignity of all human life, he found Catholics.  
“Through my sister and her husband, I was able to have a glimpse of human life in the womb,” he said. He saw an ultrasound image of his unborn niece, Emma, who would kick when her mother watched the movie “High School Musical.” The family said Emma loved dancing, like other family members!
“We lost her, but she was truly alive,” Mr. Lamar said. She wasn’t an “idea” or an “it,” but a beautiful stillborn baby he was privileged to hold. He realized such beauty wasn’t unique to her.
“They all have to be protected,” he said of unborn children.  
Ms. Wheeler said she is Catholic, so she has opposed abortion her whole life. And children were welcomed in her family.
“My mom had five kids,” she said. “We always treated them as fully human from the moment she would tell us about the babies. We prayed together before dinner” and took turns asking the unborn what their prayer requests were. The children pretended they could hear siblings in the womb, and older siblings helped care for younger ones.
“Because I had such a close connection with these babies, I feel like everyone deserves that chance,” Ms. Wheeler said. She’s working to help make that a reality.
So is Fiona McCarthy, co-chairwoman with Ms. Wheeler of Students for Life at Holy Cross, and a junior there.
“I was a cradle Catholic but ... I was lukewarm,” she said. “I knew that abortion was wrong instinctively,” but wasn’t actively fighting it.  
At Holy Cross she met committed Catholics.  
“I became an activist in this [pro-life work] because of love,” she said. “It was the love and compassion of my friends. ... We were growing together.” She joined Students for Life and heard speakers the group sponsored.
“People murder their babies ... there’s no excuse,” she said. “It’s true that having a baby changes everything. It’s also true that abortion changes everything.  
“I’m a biology and theology major ... I’m pro-life because, even if the Bible did not indisputably say that abortion was wrong,” there is also scientific evidence, which is sometimes “more accessible” to people today.  
Anxiety, depression, substance abuse and sleep disorders have plagued post-abortive women, Miss McCarthy said.
“I think if you were a true feminist, if you wanted to empower women, you would not support abortion,” she said, adding that sex traffickers force their victims to have abortions. “It’s a women’s issue, it’s a human rights issue ... the rights of the woman, and the rights of the child to live.”
She said it’s hard being pro-life; she’s known for taking that stance among her peers.
“You just have to persist for the babies,” she said. “That’s why we’re going to the March for Life.”
Anna Murphy, a junior at Assumption University and student leader of Advocates for Life there, said this is her fifth year going to the march. She also went as a student at St. Peter-Marian Central Catholic Junior/Senior High School.
“I grew up in a Catholic household; the pro-life theme has always been an underlying message throughout my childhood,” she said.  
That’s not everyone’s experience.
“I feel like, a lot of times, when you’re pro-life ... all people see is the title,” she said. “They don’t see the person ... and the good they do in the pro-life community. ... They think that we’re out to hate women.”  
She said it’s important to build relationships, so people see pro-lifers’ support for women “and connect that with the true message of the pro-life movement.” She has had fruitful conversations with pro-choice friends because she and they are open “to seeing the person, as opposed to just what their view is,” she said.
Miss Calix said she relates to peers who aren’t pro-life “by transmitting the joy of life and ... receiving them as the gift they are.” She prays, witnesses to God’s mercy and reassures people “that their circumstances do not define their worth.”
Students spoke of opposition from peers on campus, including removal of their posters to an attempt to prohibit their group.  
Mr. Lamar said a Students for Life display at WPI, which said, “Abortion’s not a right; it’s wrong” got a lot of “push-back.”
“I was happy to stand within that controversy,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of unpleasant conversations” in person and on social media.
He said going the March for Life shows solidarity with other pro-lifers.
“Even after Roe’s gone, we’re not backing down,” he said, speaking of the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, which spawned the march and was overturned in 2022. “We’re still here to support our women and make abortion unthinkable.”