Robert and Mary Rosera Joyce

While much of the pro-life movement commemorates its 30th anniversary, people like Robert and Mary Rosera Joyce won't.

Their pro-life work began before Roe v. Wade.

They are founding members of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life and charter members of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. Their 1970 book Let Us Be Born was the first pro-life paperback published in the United States.

They recently spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake from their home in St. Cloud, Minn.

How did you meet each other?

Robert: I am from Chicago, and I lived there until graduate studies and teaching at the University of Notre Dame.

Mary: I grew up on a dairy farm in Lena, Wis., near Green Bay. We met while teaching philosophy at DePaul [University] in Chicago. The first thing I said to Bob was, “What do you think of metaphysics?” With a twinkle in his eye he responded, “Philosophy par excellence!” It was love at first insight.

What first led you to become involved in the pro-life movement?

Mary: Starting in 1964, I began writing letters and articles about contraception in papers and magazines. So, when pro-abortion activism started in Minnesota in 1967, I started to write pro-life letters to the local papers. As a result, Bob and I were among the 15 originators of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life in January 1968.

Robert: We became regional coordinators for central Minnesota and presented many educational and organizational programs throughout that region and beyond while continuing to write letters and place ads in the local papers.

In 1970 you published the nation's first pro-life paperback, Let Us Be Born: The Inhumanity of Abortion. What led to its publication?

Robert: We were alarmed at the lack of reading material on the subject and at the relatively superficial way abortion was being discussed. While I was on sabbatical in 1969–1970, we wrote this book, which was published almost immediately by Franciscan Herald Press, then [located] in Chicago.

Mary: From February through September 1969, I had a weekly commentary on Humanae Vitae in the St. Cloud Visitor, including an article called “The Abortion Atrocity.” After the completion of this series, we spent Bob's sabbatical in Arizona. We were almost alone in Tucson fighting the pro-abortionists there, who were getting aggressive in the news media. That motivated us to do this writing.

What was the focus of the book? Robert: It was a basic, nontechnical philosophy of human life. We said in the introduction, “We need to be born and reborn in a love for life if we are to have an enlightened sympathy for the pre-born child and mother.”

What kind of reaction did the book receive?

Robert: The publisher passed out copies to every member in attendance at the first convention of the National Right to Life Committee, held at Barat College in Lake Forest, Ill. That meant that many of the nation's pro-life leaders had a copy at that time. A year later at the second convention of the National Right to Life Committee held in St. Paul, Dr. John Willke told us about the Willkes' upcoming Handbook on Abortion and that it would include some of our ideas. Their handbook dramatically centered the movement nationally and internationally.

Mary: The word “pro-life” surfaced as a result of our “love for life” theme. The book used the expression pre-born instead of unborn, which continued in the movement, especially by Nellie Gray, the longtime director of the national March for Life, and others.

Our book also started the slogan, “Not a potential person, but a little person with great potential.” Most of all, it presented a clear explanation of the beginning of the human person at conception. The early pro-life movement was ambivalent about legal protection beginning at conception. Bob and I struggled with Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life about this matter. When the board first voted on it, only the central Minnesotans—five of us, including Father Paul Marx—voted to begin legal protection at conception.

What kind of pro-life work have you done since then?

Mary: I have placed and raised money for numerous self-designed ads in our local papers and have wrote letters, letters, letters. All had different themes. The facets are endless.

Robert: From 1972–80 we spoke on the philosophy of natural family planning and the true sexual revolution at the national seminars, held yearly and directed by Father Marx. We have been frequent writers for the NaProEthics Forum newsletter put out by the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, Neb.

What words of wisdom would you offer to the young people involved in the pro-life movement?

Mary: Get interested in leadership, especially in chastity education. After Roe v. Wade in 1973, several of our college-age friends started the Soul organization and the National Youth Pro-Life Coalition, which survived through most of the '70s and then died out as their leaders moved into other ways of life. This kind of instability could probably be prevented if the established organizations maintained a young people's division with youth leadership passing on through the generations.

Robert: Pray for an ever-deeper conversion of heart for all of us. Work within the organizations of your choice. Be grateful that you survived the culture of death, and express your gratitude in whatever ways you can.

How do you keep from getting discouraged by the lack of political action on behalf of the right to life and more recent attacks on life at all stages?

Robert: I will never be discouraged as long as I realize that pro-life work—even the political—is basically the work of God, not just our own.

Mary: Cultural change is largely a philosophical process that calls for long-distance runners. We cannot press buttons for results. We need to stop, think and pray not only with our heads but also with our hearts. And keep working. I am now completing a manuscript called The New Culture of Love: Healing the Broken Heart of Western Civilization. One of the chapters is called “Healing the Broken Heart of the Life Issues.” As the Book of Proverbs says, “A people without a vision perishes.”

After 30 years, what signs of hope do you see for the pro-life movement?

Robert: When we became involved in this work in 1967, pro-lifers had no idea what they were getting into. We had hoped to turn things around politically in a few years. It really seemed that we had done so by 1972 with successful referenda in Michigan and North Dakota and notable victories in more than 30 state legislatures. But seven Supreme Court justices in January 1973 pulled the rug out from under the pro-life groundswell.

If we work and pray sufficiently, the pro-life movement will just as suddenly gain a sweeping victory through the courts someday. Like water boiling before turning to steam, the present steady, remarkably per-during opposition to abortion and to the other anti-life thrusts will prevail. Even then the work must continue.

Mary: An essential aspect of the needed cultural change is a true sexual revolution. When America's original Puritan-Victorian culture surged into its opposite extreme—a Playboy culture — our sexuality remained as lost in the latter as in the former.

The current progress in abstinence education is a good beginning as long as it stays and deepens in the middle ground and avoids the extremes. Also, by means of the increasing use of ultrasound technology in the clinics and the media, the pre-born child is now taking the lead in the pro-life movement.

Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.