Federal Judiciary

Making Room on Campus -- By: Kathryn Jean Lopez

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Mary Dodd is alive today because her mother said ?yes? when Mary entered her life. Now Mary?s mom is part of an effort to make sure that there is always room at an inn for mothers who want to say ?yes? to unplanned babies, but need the support to carry through with the choice.

Lacy Dodd was a senior at the University of Notre Dame when she realized she was pregnant. Her boyfriend wanted no part of the child they had made together, but abortion was not an option as far as Lacy was concerned.

She was blessed: She had faith and she had family. Last spring, she wrote movingly about the day her daughter was born: ?On All Saints Day 1999, I gave birth to baby Mary. Her name is no accident. This Mary was living inside me while I walked the campus of a university dedicated to a woman who is mother of us all, and it was Mary Our Mother who gave me courage when I was afraid of what would lie ahead. Mary teaches us always to be open to seeking the will of God in our lives, no matter what it is, and never to be afraid of God?s will. God?s will may contain suffering, but God?s will also brings peace and joy. When we place ourselves at God?s disposal, he will do great things for us.?

On that day, she says, Lacy?s father ?took one look at Mary in my arms and said to me, ?This is your gift for making the right decision.??

Needless to say, not every college student who finds herself pregnant gets that kind of support.

Last spring, moved to tell her story by the controversy involving Notre Dame?s bestowing an honorary degree on President Obama, an advocate of legal abortion (and then some), Lacy Dodd wrote of the consolation she found in her faith as a scared college student: ?No amount of shame or embarrassment would ever lead me to get rid of my baby. Of all women, Our Lady could surely feel pity for an unplanned pregnancy. I recalled her surrendered love to God?s invitation to become the home of the Incarnate Word. ?Let it be done to me according to thy word,? she had said. In my hour of need, on my knees, I asked Mary for courage and strength. And she did not disappoint.?

And that strength guides her as a mother, an activist, and a role model. Today Lacy lives in Charlotte, N.C., and is involved with Room at the Inn, a Catholic organization there that provides support to pregnant women and young mothers. They?re currently raising money to build an inn at Belmont Abbey, a Catholic college.

The Benedictine monks there have already donated the land for the inn, believing that ?we should put into action our faith commitment in the sanctity of human life,? Abbot Placid Solari explains. The plan is for a facility that will house 15 moms and their children, infants and toddlers, adjacent to campus.

?College women now account for a little more than half the abortions that occur nationwide,? Jeannie Wray, executive director of Room at the Inn, explains. ?They are the most abortion-vulnerable population that we have.? And while ?there are many maternity homes that focus on other populations of women,? she worries that there is a real lack of support for college women, specifically. ?We receive several calls each month from college students who need help, need a place to go, who are fearful that they will have to forfeit their education if they don?t have an abortion. The need is very real and it is here now. The need is as real here in North Carolina as anywhere else in the country. Our current residential facility is full, and all our residents have had their babies and are going to continue their post-high school education.?

They have $1.3 million, and need to double that before they start building on campus.

Wray and Dodd both give a hat tip to Feminists for Life for its leadership in the effort to help women embrace an unplanned pregnancy as an unplanned joy. Serrin Foster, the group?s executive director, is a merry warrior, reclaiming that F-word for the suffragettes who were opposed to abortion. Feminists for Life has long been running pregnancy-resource forums on college campuses; they have recently published a booklet called ?Raising Kids on a Shoestring.? Mom and dad and child are on the cover with the encouraging words: ?You don?t have to be a superhero. Help is here.? One of the group?s flyers has mom without dad, in recognition of the fact that not every man feels inspired by St. Joseph.

It?s not brain surgery to provide budget sheets and advice on feeding, health care, and adoption. But it can be crucial, in helping with the gift of life, in helping make the ?yes? easier.

I love Christmastime, for so many different reasons. Among them: what you can get away with. A song sung by Faith Hill that seems to be playing everywhere this season declares, ?A Baby Changes Everything.? She?s talking about one Child in particular who changed the world. But every baby does. It?s hard to escape thinking about it as so many of us read that ?when Elizabeth heard Mary?s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb.? Wise men and women don?t walk away from the implications.

Ultimately, Lacy Dodd and others would like to see Room at the Inn as a national model. And a most appropriate home could be the University of Notre Dame. Despite some of the mixed signals it sent last year, it is a home for the strength that helped her say ?yes? to unplanned joy. For as long as there will be unplanned pregnancies, there will be a need for an inn.

-- Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.

Copyright 2009, Kathryn Jean Lopez. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on December 23, 2009 (boomark / email).