New project announced and ‘Dr. Ray’ shares wisdom at Celebrate Life dinner

Members of the Boone County Gen 4 Life group wave at the camera during Right to Life of Indianapolis’ Celebrate Life dinner and fundraiser at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown hotel on Sept. 25. (Photo by Natalie Hoefer)

By Natalie Hoefer

It has been three years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization returned the regulation of abortion law to individual states.

And it has been two years since laws went into effect making most abortion illegal in Indiana.

“Officially, the number of abortions in Indiana last year was 145,” said Marc Tuttle, president of Right to Life of Indianapolis, during the organization’s Celebrate Life dinner and fundraiser on Sept. 25. “To put that in perspective, the year before the Dobbs decision was decided, it was over 8,000 abortions in our state.”

The dramatic drop drew resounding applause from the nearly 750 people—including about 325 students and 15 seminarians from Bishop Simon Bruté College Seminary in Indianapolis—gathered for the event at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown hotel.

The event featured a keynote address by Dr. Ray Guarendi—known by many as “Dr. Ray.” The clinical psychologist, parenting and family expert, author, speaker and national radio and television host is known for his humor. He is also a Catholic and the father of 10 adopted children, including several with “risk factors,” which he defined in his talk.

Before Guarendi spoke, Tuttle continued sharing about the work Right to Life of Indianapolis is doing to promote a culture of life through education, advocacy and more.

Becoming a movement of restoration, healing

The fact that most abortions are now illegal in Indiana does not end the battle for a culture of life, Tuttle noted.

“Rather than drawing a number of abortions down to zero, we need to draw a number of women seeking abortions down to zero,” he said.

To do this, Right to Life of Indianapolis will continue its current pro-life efforts—organizing the Indiana March and Rally for Life, offering student contests and scholarships, helping establish Teens for Life and Students for Life groups in schools and parishes, having a booth at the Indiana State Fair and Indiana Black Expo, and more.

But new efforts are underway as well. Tuttle envisions churches taking a leadership role in their community “to promote life, to promote pregnancy health services, to promote post-abortion healing services, to be out there educating the community and their own congregations,” he said.

The organization recently hosted a Pastor’s Breakfast, “trying to bring the leadership of churches around the city together” to bring this vision to life, said Tuttle.

He also noted the need for an increased focus on post-abortion healing.

“Abortion doesn’t just harm an unborn child,” said Tuttle. “It also harms a woman in ways that we have a hard time understanding. The increased risk of suicide, the increased use of addictive drugs, relationship problems. ...

“We’re trying to change the narrative and get the stories of women who’ve been injured, men who’ve been injured, and what that fallout looks like.”

To do so, Right to Life of Indianapolis is working with Indianapolis-based Silver Lantern Studios to produce a documentary called Gone Unseen. Through recorded interviews, it “allows them to tell their stories … to bring to the forefront the reality of what abortion is and what abortion does—not just to the babies, but to the women.

“The reason we need to do this is because culture has to change,” said Tuttle. The hope is for “the beginning of renewal, the beginning of the restoration, the beginning of the movement to bring healing back to our city, back to our state, and back to our country.”

He closed with a quote attributed to Frederica Mathewes-Green when she was vice-president of Feminists for Life of America.

“She said, ‘No woman seeks to have an abortion like somebody seeks to have a Porsche or an ice cream cone. A woman seeks to have an abortion like an animal that’s caught in a trap seeks to gnaw its own leg off.’

“And that’s the reality of abortion.”

‘Love without discipline is challenging’

Couching personal experience and wisdom in humorous stories, Guarendi shared insights on parenting and the value of all human life—including his and his wife’s own adopted children labeled as having “risk factors.”

“A risk factor is anything that would make a kid tougher to raise,” he explained. “Poor prenatal care, poor postnatal care, abuse in the womb, neglect in the womb, high maternal stress, low birth weight, heavy drug exposure … .”

Guarendi shared his opinion that “discipline without love may be harsh but love without discipline is challenging.”

He offered one of his “risk factor” adopted children as an example. The boy’s mother “pretty much ingested every toxin she could get a hold of,” Guarendi said.

But it was the boy’s bad behavior from lack of discipline in his foster home that led two prospective adoptive families to rescind their offer to adopt him.

Guarendi changed one bad behavior—not adhering to bedtime—in one night.

“I put my hands on his shoulders, and I just held him immobile in bed,” he said. He told the boy in a gentle tone, “Johnny, it’s bedtime, son. You’re going to stay here, and I’m going to hold you. And when I let go, don’t get up, because I’ll come back.”

It was all about confidence and perception.

“He was reading me [thinking], ‘This guy looks like he means it,’ ” Guarendi said. “Because even now, I know I am stronger than the biggest, baddest

4-year-old in the whole world. … It’s that element of calm, quiet, self-confidence.”

He blamed “all the psychologically enlightened ways to raise children” for confusing parents.

“You overthink, you overanalyze, you overtalk, you over negotiate—and you under-enjoy,” said Guarendi.

In his office and on his radio and television shows, parents often speak of their struggles with a strong-willed child, he said.

In such cases, “The parent needs the mindset, ‘I am [the parent], you are not,’ ” he said. “The big people have lost will. We’re not sure of ourselves. We’re not as confident. We’re not as quietly calm and authoritative anymore.”

‘We are wired different’

Guarendi noted another problem with modern parenting psychology, a concept that was promoted when he was studying for his degree.

“There was a notion they tried to push on us that I didn’t think would gain any traction whatsoever because it was too ridiculous,” he said. “It crashed up against reality, up against the research, up against God.”

The teaching was that there are no differences between men and women, that boys and girls are “just socialized into different roles,” he explained. “That if you give a little boy a baby doll, he’ll carry it around for four years and become a nurturing preschool teacher.”

The reality is that “50% of little boys will immediately rip the head off that doll and turn it into a machine gun!” Guarnedi said, setting the crowd laughing.

“We are wired different,” he continued. “God says it, human history says it, the research says it.”

Never tether peace to decisions of adult children

Guarendi closed with words of comfort for parents with children who no longer practice their faith.

“Moms especially beat themselves up,” he said, wondering, “Where did we go wrong? It was my fault. Somehow I missed things. Somehow I didn’t do what I should have done.”

He reminded such parents that, despite his perfection and ability to perform miracles, “Our Lord himself couldn’t get most people to follow him.”

Guarendi noted that some of his and his wife’s children had “drifted” from the faith.

“I think some of them may come back, although I may not live to see it,” he said.

“But my wife and I will never tether our peace to the decisions our adult children make. Never. That would make a liar out of our Lord, because he said, ‘I’ll give you peace the world doesn’t understand.’ ”

He drew laughs when he added that he “looked at those early [Gospel] manuscripts to see if there was an asterisk that said, ‘unless your kid keeps the faith—then you can’t have peace.’ ”

In closing, Guarendi reminded those present that, when it comes to their

pro-life efforts, “The Lord doesn’t always let you see the good that you’ve done or the consequences of your actions until you get to heaven, keeping you from being prideful.

“But all your work, all the stuff you do, it has a kind of subtle effect. You can’t figure it out. God knows, but we can’t know.”
 

(For more information on Right to Life of Indianapolis, their efforts or how to support them through volunteering or financially, go to rtlindy.org. For more information on the documentary Gone Unseen, go to goneunseen.org.) †