Respect for Life newsletter educates about pro-life issues

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
July 24, 2008

Realizing there was a need to educate people about pro-life issues, motivated one Estherville St. Patrick's parishioner, Marilyn Bose, to start a Respect for Life group in the area

The group was formed years ago, even before Roe vs. Wade, she noted. At the time, Bose was friends with an RN who received a nurses' magazine containing information about doctors performing abortions and logging them as other procedures.

"That is how we got started," said Bose. "We started giving talks. We were kind of surprised sometimes because after we would give a talk nobody said anything. Sometimes people were so shocked by it that they didn't know what to say."

After Roe vs. Wade happened, she recalled that several pastors in her area wanted to get a pro-life organization started. They were able to become a tax-exempt organization.

"We decided that the best thing we could do was inform people about things that they would not hear about in the regular news media," said Bose. "We started and got as many of the pamphlets, magazines and literature for pro-life that we could find. We started putting a letter together."

When deciding what their organization was going to be all about, the main focus was education.

In the beginning, the group sent out newsletters when they gathered information they felt needed to get out. The group began to get bigger and bigger.

Through the years the work has changed with technology. The group went from handwriting addresses to having printed labels. They now have a printer that prints four sheets per second. They print about 2,000 letters per month, except in August. There is no charge for people to receive the newsletter.

"I hope people understand what pro-life is and that we are protecting little babies from conception to old people who are in danger of death from other things," said Bose. "Abortion is one of the issues, but there is also stem-cell research and other things that happen in medicine."

Bose pointed out that there are more than 40 people who help with different parts of the organization - printing a newsletter, manning fair booths and distributing roses for the pro-life cause. Her husband, Richard, a retired physician, helps with choosing articles for the newsletter.

Doris Schealler, a parishioner at Immaculate Conception Parish in Graettinger, also assists with the selecting articles for the newsletter. She got involved when Bose asked her to help.

"We feel there is a great need for education on pro-life topics among our people, especially regarding what abortion does to girls and boys, mothers and fathers and families," she said. "It seems that until they realize the horrible consequences and effects of it there probably won't be an end to abortion."

Schealler noted that they pray the selected articles will "touch people's hearts and help them see the horrors of abortion."

"We feel we can educate through our articles - get them mailed out and reach people in that manner," said Schealler.

She volunteers to help as much as she can when it comes to pro-life including selling roses for Mother's Day (the donations are given back to Respect for Life), working at a fair booth to get literature out and much more. She also helps with anything that supports the cause financially.

Jean Thackery, a parishioner at St. Mary's in Armstrong, also helps find useful information for the newsletter. She and about six volunteers from her parish fold the newsletters each month.

"I have been with Respect for Life for 25 or 30 years," she said. "I saw the horror of it all. I picketed at the hospitals and wrote letters to newspapers. I got involved politically as well."

Thackery will help at a booth at the Emmet County fair along with other volunteers from her parish. They will pass out information about pro-life.

"I feel like we have to continue and try save babies lives," she said. "It is a horrible thing that is going on. I pray and do the best I can to protect the human life of a child."

She sees the need to get the information out there for people to educate themselves on the issue.

"We try to write in a form that can be understood by everyone and still give the information they would need to make right decisions on the issues - in their own lives and in their voting lives," said Bose. "We hope that with this information people will wake up and decide that abortion in a terrible thing."