His story reveals why the New Evangelization draws its strength from the Church’s pro-life witness.

It was 1980, and he was the first U.S. social scientist to receive permission to study the impact of political changes in a remote Chinese village. The Communist Party’s one-child policy was in full force, and Mosher followed village women in their third trimester of pregnancy to the local facility where forced abortions were performed.

“They were crying, begging for mercy and praying for their dying children. It’s one thing to think about abortion in the abstract, but when you see a baby at seven-months gestation, it’s a baby — truly one of us,” said Steve Mosher, now the president of the Population Research Institute, recalling that fateful moment.

“It was as if the pit of hell opened up before me. All of the rationalizations were swept away by the brute facts — the humanity of these babies and their killing. I instantly realized that an abortion was the taking of a human life, and I became pro-life.”

The struggle to make sense of human suffering brings some converts into the Church, and others turn to Rome when the values of the world leave their souls undernourished. But the pro-life movement also draws people like Mosher, who kneel before the Eucharist after a long search for the origin of goodness and truth.

While the inconvenient moral teachings of the faith fuel both theological dissent and partisan attacks against the Church, pro-life activists like Mosher are attracted to its teachings precisely because they offer a consistent and coherent defense of innocent human life against the brutal power of a culture of death.

Looking back on his pilgrimage of faith, he says that visit to the Chinese abortion facility forced him to abandon his casual, untested adherence to moral relativism and embark on an uncharted spiritual pilgrimage.

“On a scale of evil from 1 to 10, this was a 10. And if there is absolute evil, I concluded that there also must be a counterbalancing absolute good — or the universe would be truly mad.”

‘I Felt Drawn’
After several false starts, Mosher discovered that “if you seek good, you will find God, who is the source of all good in the universe.”

Ultimately, he found that the “only organization consistently defending the sanctity of life from conception to natural death was the Catholic Church, which had preserved the fullness of the truth. Others had abandoned parts, if not all, of it.”

In part, his spiritual quest was set in motion by the practical consequences of his groundbreaking scholarly work that documented coercive abortions in China. While some news editorials applauded his courage and intellectual independence, Mosher said the Chinese government reportedly applied extraordinary pressure on Stanford University to sever the scholar’s association with the university in 1985.

Afterward, Mosher continued to write and work at research centers. He and his wife, Vera, a cradle Catholic, had begun attending church together — after a chance visit to the California Mission of San Luis Obispo. But the scholar had yet to find his true professional vocation and felt adrift.

Then he got a call from Benedictine Father Paul Marx, the leader of Human Life International, who invited him to speak at a pro-life conference. Mosher was disinclined to accept, but there were no other pressing invitations, and so he agreed.

He was surprised to discover that the conference participants were “warm, loving and intelligent. I felt immediately drawn to them.”

Mosher became a regular presenter at HLI conferences, and Father Marx became a spiritual mentor. “He taught my wife and I natural family planning. We were older, and we used NFP to have as many children as we could.”

The Benedictine priest came to the rescue when Mosher finally signed up for a Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults class, but got fed up with what he thought was his instructor’s inadequate theology. He told the priest he was thinking of quitting the RCIA process — and the following day he received Jesuit Father John Hardon’s Catholic Catechism by overnight mail, courtesy of Father Marx.

“Steve stuck with the RCIA program and wound up teaching that class. He was on fire for the faith,” recalled Vera Mosher, who homeschooled most of their nine children.

She observed that her husband’s experience in China had an enduring impact on his reverence for the vocation of fathers. Over the years, he has drawn his children into his pro-life work, and they have all accompanied him to conferences.

“Seeing a baby aborted touched him in a profound way. He had a less-than-perfect father, but he learned about our Father in heaven and the great love and forgiveness he offers. He wanted to do better by his children, and he had the prefect role model to turn to,” she said.

Spiritual Battle
Ultimately, Mosher went to work for HLI, moving his family to a farm in the Shenandoah Valley, near the organization’s office in Front Royal, Va. His distinctive mission was to develop data-supported arguments that challenge the “myth of overpopulation, expose human-rights abuses committed in population-control programs and make the case that people are the world’s greatest resource.”

In 1996, this work became the focus of the new nonprofit Population Research Institute, which was separately incorporated and has been independent from HLI since then. His latest book is Population Control: Real Costs and Illusory Benefits. Recently he contributed a chapter on his spiritual pilgrimage for an anthology of conversion stories, Chosen: How Christ Sent Twenty-Three Surprised Converts to Replant His Vineyard.

While Moshser’s decision to engage in full-time pro-life work would have been unthinkable back in the 1970s, when he embarked on his academic career at Stanford, the social researcher has never looked back.

“He has said more than once, ‘What does it profit a man to gain his Ph.D. and lose his immortal soul.’ He really believes that. He went in a different direction because God was leading him there,” observed Vera Mosher.

Joel Bockrath, the executive vice president of PRI who has worked with Mosher since 2005, has witnessed the strong spiritual foundations of his pro-life work.

“People who get in touch with PRI recognize that Steve has a strong spiritual formation driving his activity,” Bockrath said. “Many of them have arrived at the same point in the battle between good and evil.”

“The question is: How do you engage grace to fight the fight that God wants us to fight? The heart of that is love; you can’t do anything like that without love,” said Bockrath.

It was a blow when Father Marx died in March 2010, but Mosher believes that his mentor “had a holy death. He had not been able to speak or move during that time, but in his last moment in the hospital room, he sat up and raised his arms and said, ‘Take me home.’”

As Mosher continues his pro-life work, speaking at conferences and working with affiliated groups around the U.S. and in 30 countries, he often ponders how that glimpse of “hell” in China led him to the pro-life movement and the Catholic Church — and the lessons he has learned from inspirational leaders like Father Marx.

“I have Father Marx’s picture on my bedroom dresser,” said Mosher. “His is the first face I see when I get up, and he asks me, What will you do for the babies today?”

Register senior editor Joan Frawley Desmond writes from Chevy Chase, Maryland.

On Tuesday, January 31, Dr.Maureen Condic, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, will explain the essential scientific and ethical issues of stem cell research. The lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Haid Theatre at Belmont Abbey College and admission is free.

Dr. Condic is an award-winning researcher at the forefront of today’s scientific research and ethical debate regarding stem cells. She researches the development and regeneration of the nervous system, embryonic development, and human stem cell potency and regeneration.

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Questions about the event? Contact Jillian Maisano at 704.461.6869 or at JillianMaisano@bac.edu.

AMS, Affiliated Medical Services, is one of two abortion centers in the Florida city and it was located on 6115 Village Oaks Drive. However, local pro-life advocate Bob Brady informs LifeNews that the last day of abortions was August 5 and it has closed down, after Dione Pro, Inc. filed a lawsuit against it over unpaid mortgage payments for the facility.

“The AMS clinic’s web site is also shut down,” he says. “Of interest is the fact that the sheriff has taken possession of the clinic building.”

Brady says the county sheriff’s office has posted a notice on the outside of the abortion clinic facility reading:  “This is to give notice on this date ECSO Civil Division has taken immediate possession of the proscribed property in Escambia County Florida at 6115 Village Oaks Drive 32524. And put plaintiff agent in possession of same this 15th day of August 2011. Case # 2011 CC 002472 in the case styled DIONE PRO INC. a Florida Corporation. Plaintiff vs AMS of Pensacola. All vacate without delay. If you reenter you are guilty of criminal violation & subject to arrest.”

“The Escambia County Sheriff has taken possession of the AMS abortion clinic located at 6115 Village Oaks Dr. Pensacola, FL, and has ordered the building be vacated,” he told LifeNews. “Anyone reentering will be guilty of a criminal violation and be subject to arrest as of August 15, 2011.”

Brady says a writ of possession to the Sheriff was issued by Judge Pat Kinsey on that date.

“Prolifers have been praying the rosary, offering assistance to women entering the clinic and witnessing for life at this abortion clinic for about 10 years.  Of interest is the fact that the “as of date” is the Feast of the Assumption,” he said.

In 2009, another abortion business in Pensacola closed after state officials determined it had operated for well over a year without a proper medical license. Officials with the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration inspected the Community Healthcare Center abortion business  and determined the center’s laboratory license had been expired for 413 days.

The closing follows news last week that Planned Parenthood would no longer do abortions at some Arizona locations because it declined to follow new pro-life laws enacted in that state.

Meanwhile, a California-based abortion business closed in July after 40 Days for Life pro-life prayer events there.

Earlier this year, Family Planning Associates, one of the largest abortion center chains in California, closed the abortion business it runs in Newport Beach. Operation Rescue president Troy Newman informed LifeNews about the closing of the FPA abortion facility and he said the Newport Beach location is one “where pro-lifers have been sidewalk counseling and praying for decades” and “its closure is an encouragement that we are winning.”

With FPA closing up shop in Newport Beach, it joins the closing of all five Golden Gate Community Health locations in the San Francisco area. Formerly known as Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, the GGCH abortion centers closed after financial problems and mismanagement forced national Planned Parenthood officials to disaffiliate the local affiliate.

Also earlier this year, two Pennsylvania abortion clinics operated by abortionist Soleiman M. Soli were closed by state officials in the wake of the discovery of Kermit Gosnell’s “house of horrors” where he killed a woman in a botched abortion and killed hundreds of babies in birth-induced abortions that are essentially infanticides. Soli closed the clinics and retired rather than clean them up.

The closings follow the permanent closure of a Planned Parenthood abortion referral center in Ohio. Planned Parenthood of Northeast Ohio will be closing one of its centers north of Columbus, in Galion, because it says it is has come up on financial difficulties that make it necessary to consolidate.

Young mother never wanted an abortion, but didn’t know she could refuse until her phone alerted her to an incoming text message

[Note: The following story contains quotes from text messages that do not contain proper grammatical structure or punctuation, as is common practice in texting. We left the quotes unedited in the interest of accurately reporting on this incident.]

Albuquerque, NM – The seventeen-year-old teen sat nervously in the waiting room of the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday, October 7, 2010. She was six weeks pregnant and did not want to have an abortion, but her mother had insisted.

Suddenly, her phone alerted her to an incoming text message.

“Jane, [not her real name] you are a mom! Please choose life for your baby, we want to help you! Tara”

That began a texting conversation that ultimately led to the young mother leaving the abortion clinic with the firm decision to keep her baby.

Tara Shaver, a pro-life activist and sidewalk counselor who is a former intern for Operation Rescue, had received a call from a woman named Gloria, who told Tara that her grandson’s girlfriend was being pressured into an abortion she did not want.

Gloria gave Tara the girlfriend’s mother cell phone number and asked her to intervene. Tara called the mother, who spoke rudely to Tara before hanging up on her.

Gloria then gave Tara Jane’s number. Tara answered Jane’s questions and even texted her a picture of a baby at 6 weeks gestation, the same age as Jane’s baby, and told her to ask to see her ultrasound images.

“Can i see an ultrasound an still tell them i dont want it done?” texted Jane in typical testing lingo.

“Yes you dont have to do anything you dont want…you can leave now and go next door they will
help you just leave now,” replied Tara.

“my parents wont let me,” responded Jane.

“This incident highlights the epidemic of coerced and forced abortions that occur with alarming frequency in this nation,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Abortion clinics like Planned Parenthood are all too willing to exploit women in vulnerable circumstances in order to make a buck. More must be done to inform and protect women from being coerced into abortions they do not want. Thank God for a loving grandmother and Tara Shaver who were able to avert tragedy in this instance.”

Tara assured Jane that she did not have to do anything she did not want to do. She encouraged her by telling her that her grandparents and boyfriend did not want her to have the abortion and that they would be supportive of her and the new baby. Jane asked her if Tara could help with an adoption, and Tara assured her that she could. Tara encouraged Jane to come outside and talk to her.

“I am coming over there to meet u! Lets talk before u make your final decision, theres no hurry,” texted Tara.

Jane replied, “please come now.”

“Will be there in a few minutes go outside,” texted Tara.

Finally, Tara was able to meet with Jane and get her the help she needed. Jane’s father came to the clinic to pick up Jane and take her home. Tara will follow up with Jane to make sure she gets the support she needs.

Tara’s last text message to Jane was poignant.

“We are so proud of u! You are my hero, your baby is so proud too!”

Originally posted at: Operation Rescue

O Mary, Mother of Jesus and Mother of us all, we turn to thee today as the one who said "fiat" to the life of God within you. "Thou will conceive and bear a Son," the angel told thee. Despite the surprise and the uncertainty about how this could be, thou didst say: "Let it be done to me according to thy word."

O Mary, we pray today for all mothers who are afraid to be mothers. We pray for those who feel threatened and overwhelmed by their pregnancy. Intercede for them, that God may give them the grace to say "fiat" - let it be done - and the courage to go on. May they have the grace to reject the false solution of abortion. May they say with thee, "Be it done unto me according to thy word." Likewise, may they experience the help and support of thy loving people, and know the peace that comes from doing God's will. Amen.