Pro-Life Club Looks to Thrive

Many promising Columbia clubs crumble and fade. Some never gain popularity, rising and falling with the cycles of the four-year undergraduate treadmill. Some grow too large and lose track of their original purpose. Others splinter into tiny, specialized subgroups that never find a voice in the greater Columbia community.

According to Mary Kate Johnson, CC '06, Pro-Women/Pro-Life is not one of these groups.

The Columbia campus has heard little from the club in the last year, but Johnson, who founded the organization two years ago along with Melisa Kenslea, BC '06, said that the year off is no reason to think the group has disappeared. "We're coming back," Johnson promised. "There is definitely enough interest on campus."

The last year has been rocky for Pro-Women/Pro-Life. Without a centralized leadership structure and both founders studying abroad, the group never organized itself enough to host events. With Johnson back in the country and feeling ambitious in her senior year, plans are formulating once again. Discussion groups, film screenings, and "whatever else" members express interest in are on the horizon, Johnson said.

In the short-term, possibilities include a screening of the new National Geographic production, "In the Womb," which uses new photography and imaging technology to show the development of a fetus prior to birth. "What that program shows is exactly what is at the heart of the matter," Johnson said. "The [fetus'] heart beats, the fingers move, and it has its own unique DNA, all before the mother is considered too far along to seek an abortion. It is a live human being."

Though that statement sounds familiar to anyone who has heard a pro-life position before, Columbia's group adds a twist: feminism. "The truth is that there is nothing anti-feminist about being pro-life," Johnson stated. "It is a shame when women are unfairly forced to choose between a good occupation and a child, but abortion is not the answer to that. That problem lies with the lack of health care and child care available to women ... in an ideal world, abortions would be obsolete."

To help spread this message, Johnson is considering broadening the appeal of the group by separating from the Catholic Undergraduates. "We aren't really a religious group," she said, pausing. "But we pray."

To bring in more non-Catholic members who agree with the essential philosophy of the group, it may join the nationwide chain Feminists for Life, which has sponsored shelters and programs for pregnant women and girls on other college campuses, including Georgetown. Professing no religious allegiance and accepting members of all backgrounds, the organization shares a common goal with Columbia's group.

As the club regroups, Johnson has set out to encourage people from all backgrounds to join, regardless of gender, religion, political leanings, or specific positions on abortion regulations. "There are liberals who are pro-life on this campus," Johnson said. "The ultimate goal of this group has to be to demonstrate the legitimacy of those beliefs."