College student honors mother's hope in cross-country pro-life walk

Published: 2005-07-01

ROMEOVILLE, Ill. (CNS) -- "I am a survivor of abortion," Dave Bathon told the Catholic Explorer, newspaper of the Joliet Diocese, by telephone. The 21-year-old former student of Naperville's SS. Peter and Paul School called from the road -- he is one of about 40 college students walking across the country this summer to promote the value of human life. The students, split into three groups, started in May in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle. They are to meet in Washington at a pro-life rally Aug. 6 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. In describing the circumstances surrounding his birth, Bathon said that in 1984 his mother was advised by doctors to abort her unborn son because she was diagnosed with throat cancer. "She said she chose to love me," he said, noting that many women in the same situation would have opted to have an abortion. Three years after his birth, cancer spread to the rest of his mother's body and she died. He is a student at St. Mary's University of Minnesota in Winona and a member of St. Joseph County Right to Life. "I'm trying to share my mother's hope with other people," he said.

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