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BY PRISCILLA GREEAR
Staff Writer
ATLANTA--The late Louise Summerhill opened the world’s first crisis
pregnancy center, Birthright, in a one-room office in Toronto in 1968 to
provide loving support and alternatives to abortion for women with unplanned
pregnancies.
Over 30 years later, the volunteer-run, interdenominational organization,
which now has over 550 centers in Canada, the U.S. and Africa, quietly
perseveres in that mission. Volunteers sew, provide maternity and baby clothes,
pregnancy tests, referral services, adoption information, employment,
educational guidance and friendship to callers and those who visit Birthright
centers. An international toll-free Birthright hotline receives 150 to 200
calls daily.
To celebrate Birthright’s 30 years of service in the U.S., the
organization’s national office in Atlanta sponsored a banquet Jan. 16 at
the Sheraton Buckhead Hotel.
“Thank you for helping us celebrate 30 years of love,” national
director Terry Weaver said to open the event. “When the late Louise
Summerhill founded Birthright she said, ‘If we save only one baby, all
would have been worth it.’”
The director thanked the St. Vincent de Paul Society, St. Pius X High School
and Catholic Social Services of Atlanta and many other past and present
Birthright supporters. She announced that Birthright, since using its 24-hour
hotline and computers, has saved at least two babies daily.
“If you knitted booties, if you sewed maternity dresses, if you’ve
told other people about us, if you’ve typed in our office, if you’ve
said a prayer, you all are a part of the two babies every day and we welcome
you to this celebration,” Weaver said.
Birthright International’s three co-presidents and daughters of the
founder, Louise Summerhill, Mary Summerhill Berney and Stephenie Summerhill
Fox, were joined by Birthright center directors, regional consultants and
volunteers at the celebration.
“What a joy (it is) for all of us from Birthright International to be
here to celebrate Birthright USA,” Louise Summerhill said. “Your
faith in us helps to inspire us and to keep the Birthright message out there
and alive--the message that it is the right of every woman to give birth and
the right of every child to be born.”
In an invocation Archbishop John F. Donoghue thanked volunteers for their
faithfulness and encouraged them to persevere in their fight to protect all
life.
“The real cause of life is sustained by groups like Birthright, whose
members patiently and consistently offer their concern and their assistance to
the women who find themselves right on the brink of an action that might be
disastrous for the future of their lives and certainly for the future of their
souls,” the archbishop said.
“For this day-in and day-out service, the churches and the many groups
dedicated to life, through me, wish to express to all of you our thanks and to
say, we honor you and we will do everything possible that we can to sustain
your efforts in the ongoing battle to reclaim the soul of our nation.”
Father Richard Lopez, Birthright’s international chaplain, gave the
keynote address in which he compared outward and inward beauty.
“We have become an ugly society because we’ve opposed the truth
that human life begins at conception. We’re an ugly society because we
have flipped the Preamble of the United States Constitution,” he said.
“We flipped the order because life is now at the end and the choice of the
pursuit of happiness is at the beginning even if that choice takes away the
right to life.”
He reminded those gathered that, while the economy is good and people may
appear well, America continues to face serious problems such as the
world’s highest divorce rate, the increasing suicide rate (up 5,000
percent since the 1950s), the growing occurrence of child abuse and the more
than one million abortions performed yearly. The worst thing, he said, is that
people are so focused on becoming beautiful that they have no time for the
vulnerable such as the handicapped or the elderly.
“For the past 30 years Birthright has taught us to stop and see the
beauty within,” he said.
Father Lopez then told the story of a boy with severe birth defects. The boy
struggled to walk and talk as he raised money to establish an athletic program
to keep gang members off the streets. He even did this while enduring the
ridicule of those he was trying to help.
“That young man reminds me of what Birthright is all about--to make
sure that no one is excluded in life,” he said.
State Sen. Joe Burton read a letter from U.S. Rep. John Linder, a pro-life
advocate, in which he congratulated Birthright for 30 years of service and for
saving thousands of babies’ lives.
Those who have worked to uphold the sanctity of life through Birthright
received recognition. Herbert Broughton, Jr., state deputy of the Georgia State
Council of the Knights of Columbus, accepted an award from Birthright USA on
behalf of the Knights of Columbus, which has made the sanctity of life a
primary focus for the past 26 years and provided $8 million to date to support
the pro-life efforts of the U.S. bishops.
On a local level, Broughton said that Council 660 in Atlanta helped remodel
and paint Birthright’s first house and that local and state councils in
1997 donated $4 million to Birthright and other local pro-life causes.
For upholding life, Weaver and the co-presidents received recognition, and
Linda Hardin, a 20-year supporter from Holy Cross Church, Atlanta, received the
1999 Coppage Award for her dedication to the sanctity of life.
In an interview prior to the banquet, Weaver explained how Birthright
upholds life by offering women loving, nonjudgmental support.
“It has no agenda other than that of the person who needs help.
We’re not there to proselytize and get the babies for adoption,” she
continued. “We make no judgment on them or their lifestyle.”
“It takes a lot of work on the part of the volunteers to be positive
and reinforcing and find avenues to work them through (problems) without
judgment,” she said. “Our volunteers need to work at making a
friendship, building a trust relationship, showing her she’s not alone and
there are people who do care for her.”
Volunteers interviewed at the banquet described how they strive to follow
that philosophy. Clare Furnary, a 20-year volunteer who is a full-time center
director and regional consultant in Pennsylvania, trains volunteers at various
centers and counsels callers. She said many married women who call are facing
financial problems and that she recently spoke with a pregnant married woman
with no medical insurance whose husband had lost his job. She was planning to
have a $250 abortion the next day to save money. Instead, the wife met with
Furnary, who informed her of the availability of welfare programs to assist
her. The woman decided to have the child.
“She actually made her decision. She made it based on the fact that she
got medical care,” Furnary said. After having the child, the woman came in
and said, ‘If it hadn’t been for you and (that) I called the
hotline...this baby wouldn’t be here.’”
Another 20-year volunteer, Roberta Frangipane of Mary Our Queen Church,
Norcross, works directly with people from 12 to 42 years old at the Atlanta
center. She receives satisfaction from becoming friends with the women and
knowing she is saving lives.
“There are people out there who have nobody to talk to at all.
Sometimes they can’t come in and they talk on the phone. They’re just
so happy that there’s somebody who cares and (that) we’re not
judgmental,” she said.
Volunteer Michael Tinkler, a parishioner of St. Thomas More Church, Decatur,
appreciates that Birthright is not a political organization.
“We don’t march, or if we do, we don’t wear a pin that says
Birthright because we don’t want to scare any people away,” he said.
Tinker, who also answers phones, said he has learned through training to use
a comforting voice which women can respond to, to phrase things delicately and
to ask questions he initially felt awkward asking. He receives many calls from
women requesting pills to induce abortion and said that “once you explain
to them that that causes an abortion, a lot of them don’t want them
anyway.”
Atlanta’s Birthright center currently has approximately 100 volunteers
and seeks more volunteers to answer phone calls and to work directly with
clients. Birthright also needs financial donations and is looking for a larger
office space in Chamblee. For information call (770) 451-2273.
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