Right to Life of Southwest Indiana … has a new Executive Director. WNIN’s Tim Jagielo spoke with Jeff Ferguson about his role with the anti-abortion organization … and the role of Right to Life as fewer women are having abortions.
Note: this interview was held prior to President Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race.
Jeff Ferguson
The role of a right to life Executive Director really is to lead the Right to Life Organization. So we service southwest Indiana, mainly right now three counties — Warrick County, Vanderburgh County and Posey County … we resource people with life issues. And so to ensure that your organization is running smoothly to connect with our donors to connect into resources, lead the community to know how to think about life.
Timothy Jagielo
How is your role different depending on where you are? How is your role different because we're in southwest Indiana instead of Indianapolis or another area?
JF
Well, I think overall, our life issues are the same everywhere. However, each specific geographical area has unique challenges based on where we are ù — socio economic, political. So depending on those various issues, kind of determines how we speak and what issues specifically we're speaking to that are facing people living specifically in southwest Indiana. So we want to make sure that we're speaking to issues that people living here in southwest Indiana are facing.
TJ
Do you want to go over any of those issues or any of the goals that you might have for the organization, or opportunities to tackle?
JF
Yeah, I think, one, we live in the state of Indiana. So in the state of Indiana, politically, it's a state that has valued life, even through politics. And so I think championing that, encouraging that. But I think specifically sometimes in Indiana, people may say, ‘well, everything's good. Now, legislatively, we look to be on a good footing, so we can kind of relax.’ I think our goal here then is to communicate that the urgency is still there. So federally, the Roe v Wade decision, that puts it back to the States.
And so what does that mean? That means we here in Indiana, our voice is needed more now than ever before. So we need to make sure that our representatives and our senators are hearing from us — ‘how do we think about life? How do we value life and to ensure that life is protected to the utmost of our ability?’ So our voice here in Indiana, is more necessary now I believe than it ever has been.
TJ
The former Executive Director Mary Ellen Van Dyke said that (post Roe V Wade) it's also about ‘winning hearts and minds’ with this topic. Is that still true? And how do you do that?
JF
Oh, absolutely. I think winning hearts and minds is of utmost priority. If we don't win hearts and minds, we're not going to win those other battles, because that's where everything starts. And so how do we do that? What we do is we communicate to people on a level that they understand, the level that they're actually experiencing.
So how are people grappling with these issues of life on some of their deepest levels and make sure we're connecting with them on that level? Some people are motivated politically, we certainly want to do that. But other people feel like, well, ‘this issue of life doesn't, you know, impact me because I'm not a political person.’ Well, the life issue is, first and foremost a heart issue. It's an issue that we all face with on some level.
So we need to speak with families, we need to connect with families, how are families? How are husbands and wives? How are their children interacting with these and so yeah, hearts and minds, I think is a priority for us, as we continue to move forward as an organization.
TJ
There's a New York Times piece for November that cites a study that suggests that the Dobb Decision has led to more women carrying their baby to term. As we've discussed, that includes a lot of work for the mother to do that. A lot of appointments, possibly money, a lot of commitment. How would right to life support these additional women who are carrying their children to term?
JF
Our current programs , for instance, we have our mobile clinic that is out throughout the community. What we currently do is we serve women who are currently pregnant and have questions … (we) want to resource them through the, as you mentioned, the difficulty that it is the task that it is to carry a child to full term. So we're interested in partnering with these individuals, these women throughout this because it's a big task.
And so what can we do? The question for us is, and we're always wrestling with, ‘what can we do to resource these women throughout that entire process, letting them know that we're here for them, letting them know that we have resources available for them to maybe answer their questions,’ and tangible resources that we can offer them. That would help them in the entire process, and so that's why we're here.
TJ
Can you give examples of ‘tangible resources?’
JF
So our Go-Mobile clinic, we offer pregnancy testing, we offer ultrasounds, but even beyond that, we offer care that would go with that. If somebody doesn't have a doctor that they're seeing — even counseling people that we refer to, to talk to issues that they're facing.
TJ
We know that President Biden would prefer to have rights under Roe v. Wade restored. What's the plan for another Biden presidency if that happens?
JW
Well, the great thing is, regardless of who's in the White House, we are going to keep our mission at front and center. So our mission is to protect life. So regardless of who's our President, we're going to continue to move forward with protecting life. I think life is first and foremost, like we said earlier, it's a heart-and-minds issue. Does it go over into the realm of politics? Absolutely. But we are going to stay on mission, regardless of the political outcome. So are we politically active? Do we encourage people to vote and vote they're there on these issues? 100-percent, absolutely.
But we also know that regardless of the outcome, we are going to stay on mission. … We are a pro-life organization. So as we're engaging in discussions, we're engaging in conversation about these political matters, we want to lead the way in engaging in civil discussion that honors the other individual, even though we may disagree with them. So we can disagree on issues we can disagree directly. But in the process, we want to make sure that we're honoring the humanity in each other. Since we are a pro life organization, and regardless of the outcome, we're going to still protect life at all cost.
TJ
How can Right to Life find common ground between opposite sides of this discussion?
JF
Well, I think what we're focusing on is the the right to life that every human has. So the mother has a right to life, the child, the baby has a right to life. And I think, intrinsically, we're all created. This a theological issue (we) are created intrinsically with this desire to be able to, to live in so I think, where's their common ground? I think everybody that's alive today, wants to be treated with honor wants to be treated with dignity.
And so I think the common ground is making sure we're doing that we're leading the way and making sure that we're not getting in the weeds with all of these things that we mean, there's things that we're going to disagree on. And that's fine. And we won't come back from that as an organization. We're on mission. But as long as we're honoring in our discussion, I think that's when we can find common ground, even when there may be disagreement.
TJ
There was an assassination attempt recently. A divisive (culture) has been blamed for that. Does Right to Life have a role in improving the quality of discussion and civility in the US?
JW
Oh absolutely. We are advocates of fostering environments. Whenever we have it in our power to engage in discussion, again, with honor for the other person. As we think about the events on that Saturday that you're speaking of the assassination attempt — there's a whole lot of talk, there's a whole lot of anger, there's a whole lot of vitriol, both before and after, and all that.
But one thing we have to come back to is, ‘why do things like that happen?’ Well, things like that happen because of this, literally, this culture of death that has been at work in our nation for a long time. And so we're not blaming one person, one political party, but we are blaming a culture of death that has been in existence.
That's why we exist — we exist so that we can speak ‘life’ into these issues, speak life into these difficult moments where people seem to be in public discourse, losing their minds. So we want to be people who keep our composure, we have our convictions, but we want to do so in an honoring way.