OPINION
A man named Hridindu Roychowdhury recently pled guilty to firebombing an anti-abortion organization’s office in Madison, Wisconsin.
Roychowdhury and/or his accomplices also allegedly spraypainted "If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either," on the building’s wall.
These misguided individuals clearly didn’t realize the powerful role that anti-abortion organizations play in supporting women and children.
I wondered if pro-abotion rights advocates like Roychowdhury would be amenable to our cause if they knew more about it.
Many like me continue providing generational love and lifelong support for babies and moms. I am the third generation in a family of women who dedicated their lives to this mission.
My grandmother, Marlene Reid, served on the founding board of Human Life Alliance, an anti-abortion organization that publishes educational materials for university and college students about life and abortion.
Years ago she joined other women to stop a host of radical laws that would have allowed abortion up until birth in Minnesota.
My grandmother’s finest accomplishment, however, was raising my mom and five other children. My mother followed in her footsteps by raising me and my 13 siblings – nine of whom are adopted.
My mom also served on the founding board of an anti-abortion pregnancy center: Women’s Life Care Center.
Though I volunteered at the center throughout high school and college, it wasn’t until my first pregnancy that I knew I was called to dedicate my life to the Center’s mission.
Experiencing the difficulties of pregnancy with a strong husband and support system filled me with deep compassion for women who navigate these challenges completely alone. It also inspired me to further my mother’s and grandmother’s legacy.
In 2016, I became a full-time staff member at the Women’s Life Care Center.
Since 2018, I’ve served as the Center’s executive director.
Throughout the past seven years, we’ve served 400-500 women a year, with free pregnancy tests and counseling, life coaching, postpartum classes, and ultrasounds.
We also have a fatherhood program, where a male life coach equips young fathers with the information and resources they need to support their families.
In 2019, we converted the Center into a medical clinic to offer patients professional ultrasounds completely free of charge.
Even the local Planned Parenthood often refers patients to us if the women don’t have insurance or can’t afford ultrasounds out of pocket.
In these cases, we provide vulnerable pregnant mothers considering abortion with critical medical care, information, space and resources they need to make such life-changing decisions free of coercion or fear.
Many of these women ultimately choose life – 230 in fact since 2019 alone.
We also have facilitated numerous adoptions and caught several potential ectopic pregnancies for patients which could have been deadly.
We’ve been fully privately funded since 2020, when the state pulled our government funding. Our partnerships with outside organizations, local churches and the community enable us to continue supporting struggling women and children by paying rent and bills, furnishing apartments for expecting moms, stocking perishable food items and groceries for families, and more.
In addition to our three on-site medical staff and 12 part-time employees, every year we average around 50-70 volunteers who aid us on various projects.
We’ve been able to move mountains because so many heroes in our community give in the varying ways that they are able.
For example, a few summers ago, a mom considering abortion visited our center.
She told us that she had no air conditioning at home, and she feared that the blistering heat was impairing her decision-making.
It was heartwarming to see how the community stepped up to help.
Donations poured in for a new air-conditioning unit.
One of our supporters happened to own an air conditioning company, so he sent someone to install the unit free of charge.
Freed from distraction and fear, she ended up choosing life.
I like to think that she, and the countless other lives we have touched, are part of my mother and grandmother’s legacy.
My own children helped me to realize how important my mother and grandmother’s education and witness was for countless others.
I know that we will never truly establish a culture of life if the next generation doesn’t understand the value of unborn children, and the responsibility they have to protect them.
For this reason, we’ve begun doing live ultrasounds for grade and high school students at local schools.
They see real babies in the womb for themselves and come to understand these children’s inherent worth.
I pray that more Americans like Roychowdhury come to recognize this reality, so that they can join us in our work – not destroy it.
As long as you believe in real options and choice for women, we have to be here.
Jacinta Lagasse is the Executive Director of the Women's Life Care Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and the third generation in her family to carry on the tradition of protecting life.
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