GREENSBORO — Pro-life leaders spoke at a press conference advocating for the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday.
One was Clarence Henderson, who participated in one of the city’s famous sit-ins on Feb. 2 1960, at Woolworth’s diner in in protest of segregation laws. The day before, four young black men, known today as the Greensboro Four, changed the course of the nation’s history by inspiring others to peacefully protest injustice. One couldn’t help but wonder if four people were doing the same mere blocks away at the city’s municipal building during a time of unrest 60 years later. Henderson thinks so.
“Just a few short years ago, as a matter of fact in 1960, not too far from here, I sat down at a lunch counter … and put Jim Crow on trial, and Jim Crow was found guilty of an unjust law. Today, we are here because of an unjust law known as abortion, and Judge Barrett is willing to be one of the ones to support life,” said Henderson, president of the Frederick Douglass Foundation of North Carolina.
Each speaker noted that the country is once again in a pivotal moment. “I’m excited to be in North Carolina to show that pro-life America stands with Amy Coney Barrett. The Supreme Court vacancy now is the turning point in the fight to protect our most vulnerable citizens: the unborn,” said Sue Liebel, the state policy director for Susan B. Anthony List, a national pro-life group that also held press conferences in Charlotte and Greenville on Tuesday. So far during the 2020 election cycle, the organization and its partner, Women Speak Out PAC, have visited more than 294,000 voters in North Carolina sharing information on the issues, aiming to reach persuadable voters as well as base voters to encourage them to turn out for the election.
Liebel said the stakes couldn’t be higher but the pro-life movement has history and momentum on its side. She extolled the virtues of Barrett for earning bipartisan praise, including from liberal Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman and law clerks for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She also noted Barrett’s academic excellence at Notre Dame Law School, her success as a law professor at Notre Dame, her clerking for the D.C. Circuit Court and the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and her confirmation to Chicago’s Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017.
“She is an inspiration for women and girls everywhere. Her exemplary career exposes the lie that women need abortion in order to compete with men on an equal footing, and that’s just not true. She’s done it all while raising seven beautiful children – two adopted, one with special needs – and considers that her greatest accomplishment. Moms across America, like me, recognize ourselves in her because we’ve not succeeded in spite of our children; we’ve succeeded because of them,” Liebel said.
Marianne Donadio was one of approximately 40 supporters at the conference. She is the vice president of marketing and development for Room At The Inn, a Catholic maternity home in Greensboro serving homeless pregnant women from throughout the state. “Most of our moms do not aspire to becoming Supreme Court justices but, like Judge Barrett, they have chosen life and are working to provide a hope-filled, secure future for their children. They may need a little help along the way, as we all do in life, but with God all things are possible,” Donadio said.
Others in attendance were from groups such as North Carolina Right to Life and Triad Coalition for Life.
Abby Johnson, the author of “Unplanned” and the subject of the major motion picture, also spoke at the conference. Johnson is a former Planned Parenthood director and the CEO of And Then There Were None, which helps people leave their abortion-industry jobs like she did 11 years ago.
Johnson noted the frenzied response from the abortion industry and “mainstream feminists” upon the nomination of Barrett. “I know they will put abortion above all other considerations, even seeing a woman as qualified as Amy advance to the federal bench,” she said. “I have seen firsthand the damage and destruction abortion does, not only to the unborn child but to the woman who lies on that clinic table. … Science has taught us more than we could have ever imagined. We know now the long-term emotional effects that abortion has on women. We know that she will have higher rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders; we know she is six times more likely to commit suicide.”
When asked why the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett is personal to her, Johnson said, “I look at Amy Coney Barrett, and I think, ‘Wow, this would be a judicial appointment that would still be on the court, God willing, when my 14-year-old daughter is my age.’ And that means something to me.’ She’s still going to be making Godly decisions based upon our Constitution when my kids are adults. Of course, just personally being able to possibly see the reversal of Roe and Doe, to me, feels redemptive because of my past.”
Henderson also stressed that the inherent dignity of life has been a part of the country since its founding.
“I truly believe in the sanctity of life. I truly believe that we all have the right to life, he said. “And I liken that to when this country was founded based on the promise of the Declaration of Independence which says, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ Well, you know what? That includes babies in the womb, too, and we’ve got to reckon with the fact that we have to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.”
Henderson recalled his experience at the Greensboro sit-ins so many years ago. “I can remember sitting at that lunch counter because they thought that I, as a black person, was less than human,” he said. “Well, I’m here today to tell you now that babies are just as human. From conception, they have the DNA that shows who they are. They must have a chance.”
Johnson also emphasized, “There is no issue more important. Nothing that should compel you to action more than abortion. There is nothing that kills more than a million innocent human lives every year. There is nothing as destructive, there is nothing that looks like abortion, there is nothing that sounds like abortion, there is nothing that smells like abortion, there is nothing as devastating to our nation.”
— Annie Ferguson, correspondent