They’'re In It for Life

January/February 2009 Issue | Posted by Joseph Pronechen in Everyday Apostles

Paul Wilson

A Survivor Gives Back

Paul Wilson, Christendom College

Standing in front of the entire Christendom College Saturday brunch crowd to announce that a baby is alive because of your educational efforts is an emotional experience.

“I’ve literally shaken up there when I’ve done it because it’s a very powerful realization,” says 20-year-old Paul Wilson. “Everyone goes nuts. Often we just pray in thanksgiving.”

Paul is the head of Shield of Roses, Christendom’s nearly 30-year-old pro-life student organization whose main focus is prayer and witness. Every Saturday, members travel from the Front Royal, Va., campus to an abortion business, regularly a Planned Parenthood business in Washington, D.C., to pray and educate passersby. Paul leads the prayers, while others counsel women entering the clinic.

“Yes, we’re getting sworn at and laughed at, but with God’s help we saved a life that day,” says Paul. “When we see a woman turn around and see the fruits of what we’ve done through God in small ways, it’s incredibly powerful.”

Paul became interested in pro-life work long ago, first because of the million-plus abortions that “prevent children from being born who should be born … draining our country of the people who can serve it and serve God and glorify his name.”

The second reason is more personal. Paul tells his own story:

“When I was going to be born, my mother had a blood test taken that said I had a good shot at being born mentally retarded. The doctor in charge strongly suggested in obnoxious terms the option of abortion. My mom stood firm, and I was born.”

“No child is worthless,” Paul stresses. “How many more cases like mine could end up with the mother’s choice that destroyed her child and in a very real way herself, as well?”

He hopes to spread the pro-life message to the Catholic students at other area colleges.

“The more people are actually trying to live their Catholic faith, praying for the unborn, and helping to support candidates who are pro-life, the better the pro-life movement will be,” Paul reasons. “One day we know we will win. I hope and pray I will be there to see it.”

Ashley Taylor

Getting the Word Out

Ashley Taylor, Ohio State University

At Ohio State University, 22-year-old senior Ashley Taylor spent most of her first two years searching to find a pro-life club among the mega-campus’s nearly 800 student organizations. Not until late into sophomore year did she happen to meet another student at a national group’s pro-life display who turned out to be “the female president of Justice for All, the campus pro-life group that I didn’t know existed,” says Ashley.

The president invited her to the last meeting of the school year. Out of more than 52,000 students on the Cleveland campus, only three showed up that 2007 spring. And the presidency “fell into my lap,” says Ashley.

Right away, she changed the ambiguous name to the unmistakable Pro-Life Club at Ohio State University, worked on a new website (Prolife.org.Ohio-state.edu), and designed a logo and T-shirts. She also began to stand up for the cause in powerful ways.

In a conversation with fellow resident advisers, one girl said she was all for abortion because her mother had had one. Ashley asked to show her a short film on a pro-life website she had discovered through the Staudt family, friends who were active in her alma mater Lehman Catholic High School’s Pro-LifeGuards. The girl agreed — and by the end of the film, her mind and heart had changed.

“That relit the fire to start a pro-life club at OSU and be more persistent in speaking out,” says Ashley.

Ashley spearheaded the club’s highly visible campus display of 3,554 pink and blue flags that neatly lined the campus’s main oval to represent the number of unborn babies killed every day.

“We spent all day with those flags,” she says. “They attracted a lot of attention.” Many students approached them, and several asked if they could help out.

In 2008, the club’s membership tripled … to 15. Several went on the March for Life in Washington, D.C. Ashley says every OSU Pro-Life Club member realized they were a serious group doing something positive for life.

That includes activities like raising money for a local crisis pregnancy center and viewing the pro-life film Bella together. Ashley is also trying to get actress Patricia Heaton, a pro-life OSU alumna, as a future speaker.

“This is one of the biggest campuses in the country, but a lot of people don’t know we exist,” Ashley once said. Not for long.

Steven Picciano

Grand Knight on Campus

Steven Picciano, Georgetown University

Taking part in the March for Life every year in Washington isn’t 21-year-old Steven Picciano’s only contribution to pro-life work. For the last two years at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., he’s been a regular at monthly diaper drives held at the area’s supermarkets by his Georgetown Knights of Columbus Council No. 6375.

As shoppers enter the markets, Steven hands out flyers and asks people to buy diapers for mothers who need assistance. The young Knights collect the diapers from the folks leaving the stores, pack them into vans, and bring them to The Northwest Center, the largest crisis pregnancy center in the Washington area.

“In two drives we had over 10,000 diapers in one day,” Steven says, adding that the Knights and the Georgetown Right to Life group who work with them collect more than $25,000 in diapers in the course of a school year. “We basically stock diapers for the year at The Northwest Center. It’s remarkably simple for an extraordinary amount of goods.”

Steven sees hope in the simple moments, too. At one diaper drive, he handed flyers to a mother and her two teenage daughters. The mother seemed less than enthusiastic, but the daughters said excitedly, “Mom, it’s for mothers who need help. We have to do something.” That mother came out with two bags of diapers.

When Steven first arrived on campus, he didn’t miss a minute wading into pro-life work. “From high school, it made a lot of sense to me to be involved with something so fundamental — the issue of life, the defining issue of our times,” he explains.

Steven also joined the Knights of Columbus.

As the Grand Knight heading his Georgetown K of C Council, Steven was the director of the 2008 conference (CardinalOConnorConference.com) that drew more than 600 participants. He’s pleased to see an increase in “pro-life students willing to take a stand and be vocal about defending the sanctity of life.”

Staff writer Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.

Reach teens with the faith: OurFaithInAction.org ^• Homework. Tell us about an Everyday Apostle. Contact info., page 6.

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