Back Then, January 22, 1973

by Molly Noble Bull

I have never been a member of a Catholic church, and today we Home Church. However, I joined a pro-life group called The Ad-Hock Committee in Defense of Life sponsored by the Catholic church before Roe vs. Wade became the law of the land, and I happened to be watching an afternoon soap opera on TV—As the World Turns, I think, when Walter Cronkite came on the screen with an important message. The Unites State Supreme Court had just announced the passage of a new law called Roe vs. Wade, making abortion legal in all fifty states.

            I was crushed and started crying.

            I have always loved babies and small children, and babies come in all colors—red, yellow, black, brown and white. I love them all from conception to old age and beyond. Children are made in the image of God, and to me, there is no such thing as an unwanted child because I truly love and want every single one of them.

            So on that day back in January 1973, I called a pro-life Catholic friend, and we wept together over the phone. But the television was still on.

            All at once another announcement came on the screen—that former president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had just died in Johnson City, Texas. Suddenly, Roe vs. Wade was buried in the press coverage of the death of a former president, and many Americans, perhaps most, knew nothing about the evil ruling that took place of that horrible day.

            Not long after January 22, 1973, that friend and I along with two other Catholic ladies started a pro-life group in our Texas County. But it was a few years before Evangelicals, Baptists and some Lutherans finally learned that abortion was legal and joined in the fight. However, they couldn’t have fought harder once they knew, and the pro-life movement took off—starting with Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority.

            Back then, we expected Roe vs. Wade to die in two or three years or around 1976 or 77. It didn’t happen partly because we were unable to get our message out. There was no Rush Limbaugh or the Fox News Channel or all those great Christian television channels back then. All we had was ABC, CBS, NBC and Public Television—all liberal and all pro-abortion.  

            We would say or think, If only the former president hadn’t died on January 22, 1973, we could have gotten our message out sooner.

If only—

If only—

If only.

I remember listening to a political TV talk-show once consisting of George Will, a couple of liberal men and a woman who was a feminist. The TV host asked the feminist what the women of this country thought about a certain issue, and she spit out the general liberal spin as if she was speaking for all American women. But she sure wasn’t speaking for me then or now.

            Years later and after abortion became legal up to and including the ninth month of pregnancy, I tried to discuss the topic with another Christian friend only to learn that she knew little about abortion and was shocked to learn that ‘so called’ later term abortions not only existed but were now legal.         

            We’ve come a long way since January 22, 1973. But babies are still being murdered in the womb. It has got to stop.