Jacob Barr (00:00)
You wear a lot of pro-life hats. ⁓ Yes. Yeah. I've been reading your bio and it sounds like there's a lot of history there or a lot of ⁓ experiences.

Janet Morana (00:01)
Yes. And for many years.

And of course,

this book that has a lot of information in it. So, yeah.

Jacob Barr (00:18)
good.

Well, let go ahead and get us started. then, ⁓ yeah, I'll let you lead as you share your story. ⁓ Welcome to the Pro Life Team podcast. I'm Jacob and I'm here with Janet. And today we're going to get to hear Janet's, story in the pro life world. ⁓ Janet, ⁓ would you share some of the beginnings or yeah, just share some parts of your earlier pro life story.

Janet Morana (00:26)
Okay.

Well, basically my story really starts back in November 1988 when Father Frank Pavone was newly ordained and came to my parish. And at the time I had been away from my faithful almost two decades, you know, by this time I was married, I had three little kids and I wasn't going to church, but I was having my mother-in-law who lived downstairs from me take them to church and I would stay home and get Sunday dinner ready kind of.

That was the excuse I use. Well, I was trying also to get a job as a public school teacher to help the family out, get better insurance for us. And nobody was hiring in the New York City public school system at the time. So they advised me, well, just substitute teach. you know, so my mother-in-law started praying for me to get a job. She did what the Catholics call like a new veneer and all this jazz, you know? And I was just going, yeah, ma, yeah, ma. Well, guess what?

Two days before Christmas, I get called to interview at a school I never substitute taught in to take over for a teacher that had to take an emergency leave that January. So I did it, but not wanting to thwart God and Christmas was coming. So I said, you know what, I better go to church. And then I kept going to church because I met Father Frank. And what happened was my daughter, one of them after mass one day, were going out the door and.

And know, Father Frank's out there greeting people and she's going, mommy, mommy, come, I want you to meet Father Frank. Father Frank, come, come meet my mom. She's the one that has to go to confession. And of course I was like dying. ⁓ no. But Father Frank was a real cool guy. He, you know, just gave me the phone number for the rectory and said, well, you don't have to go to confession, Janet. You could just come and talk about where you are spiritually. And I'm like, talk, who wants to talk about?

this stuff, you know? So I did. I actually threw that little piece of paper in my purse to stay there for a few weeks. And I found it one morning and I said, I'm going to call this priest and see what he has to say. So I called Father Frank. He invited me to come to his Bible study class. said, Bible study? mean we studied the Bible? I didn't even own a Bible at that point. So I said, all right, I'll come. I'm using this priest. See what this is about. So he gave me a Bible.

I came to the Bible study. started coming every Friday to Bible study. And then he would let me meet with him on a one-on-one after Bible study to what he called at the time spiritual direction, which I had no idea what that was, but I found out. And he said, well, what's your problems with the church and everything? So I started listing all my objections. You know, I don't believe in infallibility of the Pope and I have problems with this and that and blah, blah, blah. So he says, well, you're a really smart lady. You're a teacher.

You want to start reading some documents so we can discuss it. So he handed me some church documents and I started reading and discovering my faith. And what I discovered really, Jacob, that I hadn't all that Catholic school training I had gone through never taught me to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And that was life changing that now I have a relationship with Jesus. And once that started to blossom in me, there was no going back. You know what mean? Because now I wanted to come to church. Why?

I wanted to worship Jesus. Even though I could read my Bible at home, I still wanted to come and praise the Lord and all that. And then in conjunction with that came pro-life because Father Pavone did not mince words in his homilies from the pulpit. And suddenly the whole issue of abortion came to life for me. I was clueless. I was in, let's see, 1973 when Roe v. happened. I was in college.

Wait, no, was I in college? Let me think. Yes, I was in college. I had to think back. I graduated high school in 1970. I'm telling my age now. So what was happening for me in college, I was watching guys I knew, friends of mine, sharing class, getting drafted and going off to the Vietnam War. And I was watching some of our neighborhood guys coming back in pine boxes. It was terrible. It was horrific. And so when Roe v. Wade happened, I wasn't even aware of it because the Vietnam War was more of a

a focal point. Not that I protested the war, but we were just so struck by it and it was affecting our neighborhood in Brooklyn, you know? So through Father Pavone, I became aware of abortion. I didn't even know women were having abortions. And what was life changing for me? And I think also it even jumped him into another whole stratosphere. He was already on fire about ending abortion.

But one day we were invited by some of our local pro-lifers to go to a rescue. Now this was in 1990. And it was in Long Island, New York. So I had to meet Father Pabon and these other people like at 5.36 in the morning. And I left my family and my husband that day and said, listen, you guys, I'm going off to a pro-life event. I didn't even tell them what it was. And the pastor of our parish made me promise.

Jacob Barr (05:49)
Yes.

Janet Morana (05:51)
Don't let Father Frank get arrested. He's got to get back here to save the vigil mass. I said, don't worry, Monsignor, I won't let him get arrested. We're just going to go to help counsel. So what we did was we had to go, we got these little instruction cards, like drive to this place. And then from there, you were in this parking field and someone gave you another index card. was kept secret what abortion mill the rescuers were going to do that day.

Jacob Barr (05:59)
Thank you.

Janet Morana (06:18)
We were not going to chain ourselves to the doors like they did back in the 90s and the 80s. We were the outer ring people who, as people were still coming to get their abortion and found out the clinic was closed and were getting upset, we were there to intervene with them and talk to them about the Pregnancy Help Center that was nearby and how we could bring them for real help and all that. And I'll never forget, the thing that impressed me the most was actually seeing girls get out of their cars with visible baby bumps.

Jacob Barr (06:24)
Thank you. ⁓

So, yeah.

Janet Morana (06:48)
And I was like, Father Frank, they're gonna kill their babies. Like, this is like mind blowing for me. And then there was one man who had his daughter by the wrist and dragging her towards the abortion mill. And when he found out it was closed, he freaked out. He went crazy. In fact, he was pointing and screaming his finger at Father Frank. And I was going to the man, you're bringing your daughter?

Jacob Barr (07:01)
Thank you.

Janet Morana (07:15)
to have an abortion? Don't you realize the risk you're putting her through? And you're aborting your own grandchild? And he was screaming at us. I'm telling you, Jacob, a door closed behind me that day. And of course, behind Father Frank too, but he was like already on a different stratosphere than me. But it made abortion real for me. my gosh, this is really happening. These women are going in with their babies and killing them. And I also was very...

Jacob Barr (07:24)
Hmm.

Janet Morana (07:44)
in tune to the damage abortion was doing to these women. And that was it for me. I just got involved. We established a pro-life committee at our parish. We just were doing pro-life stuff like crazy on Staten Island, New York. And then of course, when father in September 93 was elected to be the first full-time director and Cardinal O'Connor gave him permission to do Priest for Life, I thought, by father, I'll just continue doing my work here on Staten Island.

Oh no, he got me involved. I continued to volunteer for Priestful Life and Father Frank. In fact, our first resource department was ran out of my basement. I had volunteers coming and helping father. And then in June of 2000, I totally left a very successful teaching career and became full-time with Priestful Life. And the teachers in my school were flabbergasted that I was going to leave this great opportunity to have a guaranteed pension and all these guarantees in life.

to go off and do pro-life work. In fact, at my luncheon that they gave me, my goodbye luncheon in June of that year, at the luncheon, my final speech to them and thanking them, I said, well, I'm going to do the work I'm doing because I'm going to help you, ⁓ ladies and gentlemen, with job security. And they looked at me puzzled. I said, well, because I'm going to stop people from aborting their children. Because guess what? If we keep aborting the children, your class size is going to go down and some of you are going to lose jobs.

Jacob Barr (08:59)
that situation.

Janet Morana (09:11)
And they were like, what? And this was to a mostly pro-choice people, you know, in New York City, go picture, you know? And so that's been, that was the start of my adventure, so to speak. And I've been involved in the pro-life movement for 35 years now.

Jacob Barr (09:30)
Wow. Wow, that's such a good.

Janet Morana (09:31)
Yeah. And I went

to my first March for Life in January of 1990, and I have never missed one since. Never. I even went to one on crutches when I sprained both my ankles when I fell down a few steps carrying laundry. And I still went on crutches to the March for Life. And the year of COVID when they had to shut down and not have the march,

Jacob Barr (09:42)
Wow.

Janet Morana (09:57)
A hundred pro-life leaders were selected to march symbolically for everybody. I went then too. So it's 35 years straight. This will be my 36th year this January. I have never missed a march for life. Yeah.

Jacob Barr (10:12)
So, yeah,

so tell us why the March for Life, you know, what it means to you to go.

Janet Morana (10:19)
Well, I think for everyone who does go, you're home in your own neighborhoods doing pro-life work. And sometimes it can be discouraging. You don't feel, am I really making progress here? Am I gaining ground? Especially if you live in a blue state, like I did at the time. Now I'm in Florida, hallelujah. But when you're in a blue state, it can be very discouraging. You know, when so many people around you are pro-choice, as they put it, you pro-abortion.

and you're still trying to, it's like pushing a piano up a flight of steps you feel, you know? So you go to the March for Life and it's like a celebration of being with like-minded people. So it gets you energized to go out for the rest of the year and kind of, you know, do the battle, face the devil, so to speak, because this is a spiritual warfare. It's a battle between good and evil. So when you're at the March for Life, you get energized, right? You meet, I mean, you've never seen so many wonderful people, you know?

I mean, at a March for Life. And one year, I think it was in 2004, myself was, or 2005, whatever that year was, it was the March for Women's Lives with the pro-aborts marching. I don't know if you remember this. And I brought a group of the silent and more women with their I regret my abortion signs. And we stood silently there while they marched by cheering for abortion and rah rah rah, you know? And it...

They didn't look as happy as we looked. You know what mean? Like, cause we're standing up for babies and trying to tell women don't have an abortion. Listen to the voices of women who had abortions. And I know by the way, I never had an abortion. Some people get confused by that. Why do I, was I so passionate? It's because I just became passionate and I saw what it was doing to women, you know? So anyway, at that particular march, one woman had a sign about, you know, Planned Parenthood being so wonderful.

She came towards us with her sign and she grabbed her sign and she crushed it in half and handed it to me and said, I can't be with these people any longer. I had an abortion and I'm reading your signs about regret. That's how I feel. Can you guys help me? And we did. We got it to an abortion recovery program and she became a terrific pro-life advocate, you know? And so that's what I tell people. You know, when people are healed from their abortion, they only go in one direction.

Okay, they go between not so keen on being pro-life or not knowing where they stand to pro-life. They vote pro-life and they just wanted to pay back. So many people involved in the pro-life movement have had prior abortions, but now that they're healed, they just wanna help the movement in general. Some of them are working in pregnancy centers, abortion recovery programs, et cetera. And it's only one direction they go in. It's pro-life, you know?

Jacob Barr (13:13)
Wow. From my experience, I feel like that encouragement of like-minded, you know, seeing all the like-minded people, I experienced that at the Heartbeat International Conference, the Alliance for Life Missouri Conference, the NIFLA, these different pro-life groups that come together for education. I have that experience, but I haven't been to a March for Life as of yet, but I imagine it would be just that, only 10 times bigger.

Janet Morana (13:14)
Okay.

Right.

Jacob Barr (13:42)
maybe 100 times bigger. don't know. ⁓

Janet Morana (13:43)
Yeah. Well, maybe Jacob,

God's calling you to come this January, you know? ⁓

Jacob Barr (13:49)
I

actually, yeah, I did make it to the 115 forum in Washington, DC. So I'm starting to do these ⁓ events that normally I would put outside of my budget. And so I'm trying to make room for those really good things.

Janet Morana (14:05)
pro-life leader

meeting we had in September, there were over 75 leaders in the room. Did you not find that encouraging and all the updates? Amazing, right? And it's very important. And you know, people always ask, why are there so many pro-life groups? Well, brothers and sisters, I could tell you why there's so many pro-life groups. Because different groups focus on different aspects of the pro-life movement. But we all cooperate and work together and collaborate together so that we can get more done, right?

Jacob Barr (14:13)
That was amazing. It was very encouraging.

Yeah. Yeah, it's, I often, ⁓ evaluate, often reflect on how it represents the body of Christ. Like there's some of us are called to be different body parts or, each one of us is called to be a different body part, but yet as a whole, we work together towards a ⁓ common mission.

Janet Morana (14:35)
It's great.

Exactly.

Right. Well,

and I like to compare too to a stained glass window. Each of the us is just one little colored piece of glass. But when you put all those pieces together, it makes a beautiful ⁓ picture, know, a stained glass window.

Jacob Barr (15:09)
At my church, we like to say that everyone, it's almost like there's a giant mirror that reflects Jesus and that mirror was broken into tiny shards and each person reflects Jesus in a unique way. And all together, we all reflect the same, we all reflect God as image bearers, but we all reflect God in a unique way. ⁓ As a collection, we reflect him holy in some way.

Janet Morana (15:17)
Right.

Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly.

And you know, it's very important to point out to people that we in the pro-life movement, we're not just standing up for the baby, we're standing up for the mother too and the father. And that we're not also against anybody who has had a prior abortion. I mean, that's the work I do the most through one of the ministries at Priest for Life is we support and it's part of our ministry, Rachel's Vineyard, which is the largest abortion recovery program worldwide. Rachel's Vineyard.

is in over 75 countries. The manual has been translated into over 25 languages. This weekend alone, there will be 12 retreats, eight of them in the United States and four internationally of Rachel's Vineyard. An average 10 to 15 men and women combined are on those retreats. So look at all that healing that's going on, ongoing, ongoing, ongoing. And Rachel's Vineyard is the largest abortion recovery program, but I belong

to a network of abortion recovery folks called Abortion Recovery Coalition, there's close to 24 abortion recovery program participants. And so I point to that all the time. If there's nothing wrong with abortion, then why do we have so many people recovering from it? Why are there so many people needing recovery and needing connection? You know, because the other side,

They bill abortion like it's healthcare. We know it's not healthcare. It's always bad for the baby, but we can show, and I prove even in my books, how it's always bad for the woman and the man too, the mother and father. And so we just have to get that message out. In fact, ⁓ we have a great ⁓ URL. You can go to abortionforgiveness.com. That's abortionforgiveness.com. If you just put in your zip code, you can see where the nearest Rachel's Vineyard and save one.

and other abortion recovery programs are. So you can help someone get healed. Maybe you'll have a relative that lives in a different state and you don't know what's going on there. We'll go to abortion, I'm sorry, not recovery, abortionforgiveness.com. Go to abortionforgiveness.com. You put their zip code in and now you can help lead them to abortion recovery where they live, you know? So it's ⁓ abortionforgiveness.com. We make that available and...

We really try to get the word out because there's no such thing as the unforgivable sin and abortions right there. In fact, we we've ministered to people who have multiple abortions and you know, as long as they repent, they will receive the mercy of Jesus and forgiveness and that peace that comes over them when they embrace that healing, it's transformational. It's amazing what happens because you know, we have so many, especially with the women.

I've had so many women say to me, because I've helped out on these retreats, my gosh, I should have done this sooner. I was living with this pain for so long. Why didn't I do this sooner? And that's always that sentiment. Why did I wait so long? So we want to, you know, I want to really put that invitation out there. Anyone, anyone who's hurting from an abortion, a man, a woman, a grandparent, grandparents, we have mothers and fathers took their teenage daughter for an abortion thinking it was the...

helping them so much only to discover their behavior changed, their grades dropped, and some of them even drop out of school. Well, grandparents too, you know, and some grandparents didn't know their daughter went off when they were in college and had abortion without them knowing, but they saw behavioral changes, you know. Everyone is welcome to abortion recovery and to Rachel's Vineyard to find that healing and that peace that can come to them. It's just amazing, you know.

Jacob Barr (19:23)
That's so good. Yesterday I did a podcast with Dinah Monahan who runs a ministry called Psalms 51 where they invite ⁓ those who are working in the church to have a retreat in order to find the healing that they need from past sin or essentially as a place to confess and

Janet Morana (19:27)
⁓ I know Dina very well.

Jacob Barr (19:50)
and essentially get healing and build bonds with other women on a retreat type center or experience. and yeah, so this isn't, you know, know, healing is needed for everybody. There's no exception to those who need healing. Sin has marked everybody outside of Jesus.

Janet Morana (20:07)
in

the course of the interview, did Dinah tell you about her mother, Virginia Evers?

Jacob Barr (20:12)
She

did. She did talk about her mother's, as well. Yeah.

Janet Morana (20:16)
Her

mother is the lady who founded that little precious feed pit. Yeah. Amazing story.

Jacob Barr (20:20)
Exactly. Yeah,

that's really the pro-life icon. And it became the pro-life icon naturally or organically and through God's direction more so than someone just, you know, choosing it.

Janet Morana (20:28)
Right. Yeah.

That's right. Yeah, I've known that Dinah and the family for decades. have. Yeah, I met them early, early on days of me doing my pro life work and they're great friends, great friends. Yeah.

Jacob Barr (20:42)
Ha

that's good. So I want to ask you, so this podcast is primarily for prancing clinic directors, but also for pro-life leaders. And with all of your experiences from Priest for Life, the healing ministry work, what would you like to share with pro-life leaders or specifically prancing clinic directors that would be helpful to them?

Janet Morana (21:14)
Well, I can tell them a little story, which they might find interesting. Back when Georgette Forney and I first developed Silent No More, about, we, you know, we developed it in 2002, had our first events in 2003. And Jennifer O'Neil became our first celebrity spokesperson. And ⁓ she's an actress, you know, still does some acting. In fact, in the Reagan movie, she played Ronald Reagan's mother. Jennifer O'Neil did. Anyway.

Jacob Barr (21:16)
Sure.

Janet Morana (21:43)
She spoke at a heartbeat conference, must've been in 2005, about her own abortion and being silent no more. So Peggy Hartsham was up there and Jennifer had just finished her talk and everyone's applauding. And one of the pregnancy center directors came up out of the audience and whispered into Peggy's ear and Peggy nodded and gave her the microphone. And Jennifer's standing there in this pregnancy director in the prison and she says to everybody in the audience.

I'm so inspired by Jennifer's talking to us about her abortion. I want to be silent no more. Also, I had an abortion and she tells her brief story and she said, who else here wants to be silent no more with me? Please stand, raise your hand. Let's be silent no more. Do you know more than half of the people at that conference stood and were silent no more? And it was the first time

that so many of them ever admitted to their other colleagues that they had had an abortion and went through healing. Imagine? And so what happened from that moment going forward was Heartbeat started developing. They have their own abortion recovery track now and everything. It just blossomed and mushroomed and it became permission, permission for people working in pregnancy centers to, to.

Jacob Barr (22:49)
Hmm.

Janet Morana (23:10)
to echo to their colleagues that, yeah, you know why I wanna be a counselor in the counseling room? Because I wanna share now my abortion story to talk her out of that abortion. So it became like this whole changing thing. And from that, when they would interview people at pregnancy centers to be either a paid staff or volunteer, they did have to ask them if they ever had an abortion. And then they had to ask them if they had gone through healing.

Because if they hadn't gone through healing, then they make that a step they must take before working or volunteering in the center because they want them to be in a safe place. So this whole thing evolved because of Jennifer O'Neill speaking at that heartbeat conference that year. So I always think back to that story and say, and now, as you know, abortion recovery in pregnancy centers is a big thing they do. And very often they'll get a woman in there who's had a prior abortion

and they get to convince her to let them help her with this pregnancy, but then they also have to get her healed because it's a statistically proven thing that women who have had an abortion and it hasn't been healed by their next pregnancy, they have trouble bonding with their baby and all kinds of other complications. So it's very important for us to get women healed who are now had a prior abortion, but are now convinced that they're going to have this pregnancy and not abort it.

Jacob Barr (24:34)
Yeah.

Janet Morana (24:39)
but they still need help of healing because of that. So, yeah.

Jacob Barr (24:44)
Wow. So normally

I like to ask people, you know, where have you seen God's fingerprints in your journey? But I sort of want to ask you a different question. I'd like to ask you, where have you seen God's fingerprints in Roe versus Wade being overturned? you know, when it came to Dobbs and just what are your thoughts on Roe being overturned?

Janet Morana (25:06)
Well, I have a lot to say about that because Norman McCorvey, the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade was a personal friend of mine. I don't know if you knew that. ⁓ Yes. And also Sandra Cano, the Doe from Doe v. Bolton. I knew both of them. Norma, was a closer friend of Sandra. Sandra, I knew and I was at events with, but Norma and I were real friends. ⁓ In fact, she had a nickname for me. She used to call me the woman of the East.

Jacob Barr (25:14)
I didn't know that.

wow.

Janet Morana (25:35)
because I lived in New York at the time and she lived in Texas. ⁓ I mean, Norma was a sad soul in that she was really used by the abortion industry. And she was used by those who were plotting like, and I also knew Bernard Nathanson too, the founder of the abortion industry. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, yeah.

I know Jacob, like I had the privilege of knowing these people personally, knowing them. And ⁓ I can tell you stories about Nathan's, but let's stay on Roe v. and Norma for a minute. First of all, both Norma and Sandra never had abortions. Okay? That's an important fact. In fact, Sandra was tricked by the social worker and her mother. She was in the process of what she thought was to get her children back out of social

from the social system back with her. And when she discovered she was pregnant again, she was in an abusive marriage and the husband was not a good guy. So her mother wanted her to abort this baby, but Sandra didn't want to. So they had her sign this thing and Sandra wasn't well-educated and she didn't understand what she thought she was signing documentation to get her kids back. In fact, she was signing something to get an abortion. So when Sandra found out, she fled Georgia to Oklahoma.

and lived with a family relative out there so she could have her child. And eventually she came back to Georgia, got her kids back, and everything progressed from there. Norma, on the other hand, she was in Texas at the time, and this was her third pregnancy. She already had two other children. In fact, her mother was raising one of her kids, her daughter Melissa, when she became pregnant again, because Norma was a real wild child.

That's the easiest, nicest way to describe her. You know, she dabbled in drugs, a lot of sexual relations and blah, blah, and she, she used to drink and all kinds of stuff. So she found herself pregnant again. And this time her mother said to her, I'm not raising another one of your kids. That's all her mother said to her. She, her mother didn't say go have an abortion, but she said, I'm not raising any more of your kids. So Norma started looking into a termination of the pregnancy.

And at this point, she was almost like semi homeless kind of thing. was hanging out in the park there in Dallas. And meanwhile, there's Sarah Weddington. Sarah Weddington is one of the lawyers and ⁓ coffee ⁓ was the other one who fought her case through the courts to get to the Supreme Court. Sarah Weddington had an agenda. She was a young lawyer and Sarah Weddington herself had gone.

to Mexico to have her own abortion when she was engaged or fiance, because it would have interrupted her career in law school. Okay, so Sarah had to go to Mexico at the time to have an abortion. So keep that in the back of your head. So Sarah was involved with other legal minds who were trying to figure out how can we get abortion legal through all of America? Because Dr. Nathanson and his people,

They were going like state by state, you know, working with, Betty Friedan and these other women empowerment groups, like, you know, okay, abortion was, you know, abortion was legal before Roe in about five states. It was in New York, California, Hawaii. I always forget the other two, but anyway, so abortion was legal before Roe in a handful of states. But Dr. Nathanson and his cohorts was saying, my gosh, this will take us forever to do.

We've got to get a case that we can bring through the courts and let the Supreme Court make it legal. And then we get it in all 50 states in one swoop. So that's what happened. So they were trying to find a case, all right? They were looking for women that they could ⁓ kind of use their case to be the case. Norma, meanwhile, was hungry and was thinking, well, maybe I'll try and get an abortion, but I can't get one in Texas. So what am I going to do? Sarah Weddington kind of ran into Norma in the park and said to her,

They started try it and she goes, ⁓ you're a fancy lawyer. Well, I'm trying to get an abortion, but I can't get one here in Texas. And she said, well, I can help you. And she goes, how are going to help me? She goes, are you hungry? Of course, Norma was starving. Let's go have some pizza. And it was over a pizza lunch that Norma signed on the dotted line for Sarah to go forward with her case, ⁓ to start fighting for legalized abortion. So they fought it in Texas, then to the Fifth Circuit and then eventually up to the Supreme Court.

In fact, the Roe v. was argued twice. Okay. This all started back like in, I think was 1970. So look how long it took. And meanwhile, Norma ended up having her baby because Sarah couldn't help her in time. So Norma had the baby and she placed that baby for adoption. It was a baby girl. ⁓ and, ⁓ a lot of women over the years came forward to claiming to be the Roe baby. But Norma told me.

There's one thing about that baby only I know and I'll go to my grave with that secret. And she did go to her grave with the secret. I would guess the baby must have had a birthmark or something that Norma would know that was my baby. And so she never, like when Roe was decided on January 22nd, 1973, now you would think she would have gotten a phone call from Sarah Weddington and go, we won't.

She didn't hear from Sarah Wennington through all those years as it was going through the courts, okay? In fact, Norma found out about Roe v. Wade that morning when she opened the front door of her house, bent down and picked up the Dallas Morning News that said, that was actually the next morning, the 23rd, and it said, Roe v. Wade is now Laura the Lant. And she went into her kitchen where she had a friend there who was having coffee with her for breakfast.

Jacob Barr (31:32)
Thank

Thank

Janet Morana (31:45)
And she threw the paper down in front of her and said, hey, guess what? You know who Roe is? And her friend went, who? Who's this Roe person? She goes, it's me. And the person laughed at her and said, well, I'm the queen of England. How's that? They wouldn't believe her that she was the person that started this case. And so she was amazed by it. A short time after that, the pro-aborts began to contact Norma and see if she would help them. ⁓

Jacob Barr (31:46)
So, I that's a good thing. I think so. So, I think that's thing. I think that's a I I think a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I a good thing. a I think that's a a good I

Janet Morana (32:14)
It turned out she wasn't the kind of help they thought because she didn't believe in abortion just all the way, like they said, because in fact, she got hired in Dallas ⁓ by an abortion clinic. And she was one of the people who would be like the receptionist to talk to the girls and blah, blah. One of the things she would say to them, which made the abortion clinic crazy was,

Jacob Barr (32:19)
So, thank you.

Janet Morana (32:42)
Are you sure you want to have this abortion? You understand you're terminating the life of your baby, right? She would say things like that. That wasn't selling abortion, you know? And of course, if you know the story of Norma, next door was Flip Bennett and Operation Rescue. And every morning they would say to her, good morning, Ms. Norma, Jesus is your friend. you know, they kept, and then was the little girl who really befriended her and invited her to church.

And she would listen to this kid invited to church. And finally, one day Norma said to me, I couldn't hear the kid another day. said, fine, I'll go with you to church. And of course, it was that exposure to Christians and going to church that got Norma to accept Jesus, to quit working in the abortion clinic, ⁓ to be baptized, Benham baptized her in a swimming pool in his yard. And ⁓ it was...

Jacob Barr (33:24)
Thank you.

And

Janet Morana (33:36)
A few years after that,

Jacob Barr (33:36)
here it

Janet Morana (33:37)
that Father Pavone brought her into full communion into the Catholic Church. And I was in the church in Dallas sitting next to her when she was confirmed into the Catholic Church. So Norma and I had a great friendship. I would stay in her house in Dallas. She would stay sometimes in my house when she visited New York. A couple of times I ended up speaking for her when she wasn't feeling well and she had to cancel a last minute banquet or something. I would step in for her so that the people weren't disappointed.

And I can tell them tons of Norma stories and some of the stuff I've just shared with you now. And you know, there's been a lot of talk over the years. And then of course, you know, both Norma and Sandra worked with the Justice Foundation to try to overturn their case, which the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court wouldn't grant them what they call social area. They wouldn't hear their case, which really disappointed them. And the day Norma died, in fact, I was with Father Pavone in Rome attending an event.

Jacob Barr (34:13)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Janet Morana (34:34)
And her daughter Melissa called us, because at that point Norma was in hospice. And she said, Norma wants to talk to you and Father Frank because it won't be too much longer. And we spoke to Norma and she made me promise. She said, Janet, woman to the east, you're going to promise now. I'm not going to be there to see Roe overturned. You're going to promise me, aren't you? Please promise me. You and Father, you guys are going to work towards making that happen, aren't you? I said, Norma, you have my promise. You have my promise.

She died a half hour after we spoke to her. So people might rumor stories about, ⁓ Norma went back to being pro-abortion. No, she stayed pro-life till the moment she died. She asked us to continue to work to overturn Roe. So on that day in June, when Dobbs was decided, I was here in our Priest for Life studio doing live programming and the announcement came out and everyone's going, Janet, tell us your reaction. I was.

tears, crying. And I looked up like this and I said, Norma, promises kept. That was my feeling. Promises kept, Norma. Now you can rest in peace. We kept our promise. We kept our promise. But as you know, the fight continues and we really have to correct people. It did not go back to just the states. Direct quote from Dobbs.

They have returned this to the people and their elected representatives. So that includes Congress and your state representatives, both. It's not one or the other. It's not just the states. And sometimes even President Trump and other politicians misquote that and they say, ⁓ it's back to the states now. It's back to the states now. No, guys, guess what? Congress could pass laws too, restricting abortion.

They just haven't had enough of a spine yet to do it. But it's not just up to the states. While we're gonna work like eager beavers, and I think we have over now 12 states who have real good, know, some of our states are abortion free like Alabama. And here in Texas, I mean, in Florida where I am, we have the heartbeat law. They've outloaded it in Texas. know, abortions are going down surgically and Planned Parenthood are closing.

But the problem we are still facing is the chemical abortion. That's what's running rapid right now. And the fact that the FDA just irresponsibly okayed for the pill, abortion chemical pill to be made generically is criminal. ⁓ The fact that they have decreased ⁓ the protocols for it. I mean, it used to be, you couldn't use it past nine weeks and it used to be.

that only a medical doctor could prescribe it after doing an ultrasound and confirming how long the pregnancy was, because it wasn't supposed to be used past nine weeks. They're using it off label now. Women are giving birth to their babies, and they're in the toilet and seeing their dead babies. I I have pictures here from ⁓ my book, ⁓ here, Everything You Need to Know About Abortion for Teens, and here, look at this baby. That's a baby at seven weeks.

And that's what women are seeing in their toilet. Okay. They're seeing arms and legs and eyes looking at them. I, how do I know? Because we have the testimonies that coming through healing quicker. Look, look at this little one here, eight weeks. Look, look at that fully formed. Here's nine weeks, you know? And these are the babies that that chemical abortion is killing. You know, when you think about it, a heartbeat law protects a baby. Once you can detect that heartbeat on a Doppler, which is at six weeks.

But that baby's heart starts beating like 21 days after conception. That's when the heart starts to beat. It's amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Jacob Barr (38:31)
Yeah, it definitely beats

before we can detect it because it's just a matter of when we can detect it. That's when we, you know, it starts beating before that point. Yeah.

Janet Morana (38:37)
Right.

That's right. And what

I always say to people is like, isn't it amazing? said, you know, if I passed out right now in front of you, when you were standing here next to me, Jacob, what would you do? What would you do? You're going to feel very pulse, right? You want to see if I'm still alive and you're going to call 911 and get me out. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Jacob Barr (38:56)
Yeah.

Well, call for help and then check for your pulse. ⁓

Janet Morana (39:02)
Well, but most people

will do a pulse check or they start doing CPR. But why do they want to feel, what does any technician feel for a pulse? Because that's your heartbeat that tells them you have a beating heart. Hello. So we recognize a heartbeat as a sign of life. It's there, you know, all over the place. We all recognize it, you know? So we really, really have to face the fact that you're killing babies.

Jacob Barr (39:17)
true.

Hmm.

Janet Morana (39:32)
whoever beating heart who have brainwaves and you know at conception when you think about it act the moment of conception, everything is there. All the DNA and everything there to create you into a full human being is there at conception. The only difference is you just got to get a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger. That's it. That's the only difference, you know, so, ⁓ we ha see to me, the education is twofold. Keep teaching about.

the biology scientifically of that unborn child and all the amazing things that that baby does at different points of gestation. But at the same time, we have to educate people on the damage abortion is doing to women, both physical and psychological, because I could quote anything you want, Jacob. I could tell you why you never need to have an abortion in the cape of rape and incest. OK, clear arguments, clear arguments. Why?

If you survey, and Dr. David Reardon has done studies on this, if you do studies of women who were raped and take this percentage of women who were raped and aborted and this percentage of women who were raped gave birth to the child, some of them raised the child, some of made an adoption plan, okay? Guess where the regret is? On the women who had the abortion. Why? And they tell you in their own words.

that having that abortion was a second trauma. It didn't erase the rape. It didn't get rid of the trauma of the rape. It compounded it. And now they felt the guilt of destroying this innocent life. It's like punishing the child for the crime of the father, right? That's what it's like. Now you look at the other side of the coin, the women who gave birth to the child. And I have some of these testimonies in my book. They all said that giving birth to that child

was a positive thing. It helped them get over the rape experience because they gave life to this new little human being. And of course, a lot of people think, but the baby's going to remind them of the rapist. Guess what? I have a testimony in my book of a girl named Liz, and she was date raped in college. And she gave birth to a little boy, and she made an adoption plan and an open adoption plan. In fact, she still has a relationship with the baby.

through the adoptive parents, because the baby calls her, ⁓ he calls her Aunt Liz. And so she gets to see him periodically, they send her pictures, et cetera, et cetera. And she said, yeah, I gave birth to a little baby boy. And no, he did not remind me of my rapist. Did not. In fact, it's been life-affirming for me and encouraging for me. She was able to stay in school, place the baby for that adoption, and she's gone on to have a beautiful, successful life.

So the actual stories are the truth. And I always say, listen to the voice of experience and not all the political rhetoric that's out there. Because when you study the experience, it proves out aborting because of rape and incest is never a solution. Okay. And then of course we have the other big one. ⁓ Life of the mother. Now life of the mother, you never have to pit one patient against the other. The pro-life OB-GYNs will tell you.

Jacob Barr (42:25)
Yes.

Janet Morana (42:52)
You treat both patients. You bring, no matter what the complication is, you bring that mom along as far in that pregnancy as you can, and then you deliver that child, and then you do everything you can to resuscitate the child. Now we all know if that child is under 22 weeks, the chances of survival are much, much less, but we have had some miracle cases, miracle cases, but see then the mother doesn't have the guilt of killing the baby.

There's no guilt on her. She's did everything possible to help her baby. If the baby dies as a result, she didn't get any physical damage from the abortion because it's healthier for her to give birth than to abort. And there's a lot of miracles happen as we know. We have babies born at 21, 22 weeks who survive and become very normal kids. They just survive. In fact, one of my neighbors gave birth to her child prematurely. was a case of...

Jacob Barr (43:27)
Yeah.

Janet Morana (43:53)
She was having health complications herself. And so the doctors decided to induce labor and deliver the baby. Well, the baby is now, see, July, August, September, October. The baby's three months old and she was born at four pounds. She's now up to eight pounds. And my friend said to me, know, I look at my little tiny, tiny three month old baby. You know, she just got out of newborn call. She's in three months now. And she goes, I have a neighbor who just gave birth to an eight pound baby. And I look and go,

I'm so jealous. Look at my little one. But she'll catch up. They catch up, eat, and every time. We get letters here at Priest For Life all the time of families that tell us, yes, my baby was born in 23 weeks, but look at her now. You know, she's going off to kindergarten. ⁓ It's amazing what the body does. And so there's never a case for life of the mother. In fact, chemotherapy now.

There is new chemotherapy drugs that can be given to a woman once she's out of her first trimester and has no ill effect on the baby. So even that whole scare with the cancer jazz doesn't exist any longer. So ladies and gentlemen, if you are having a complicated pregnancy, please seek out a Pro Life OBGYN. Don't listen to these guys that are pressuring you to, and they won't use the word abortion. They like this fancy word terminate.

Jacob Barr (44:58)
Thank you.

Janet Morana (45:14)
Okay, they try to talk you into terminating your pregnancy. Because again, with Silent No More, we have testers and women who caved into the pressure from these doctors to abort and how they deeply regretted that decision and wished. And there's also the case of misdiagnosis. Again, I have testers in my book. Some people were told the baby would have Down syndrome. Guess what? Normal child was born. The tests were wrong. Life is always the choice, brothers and sisters, always because

That's the beautiful choice. It's always a good as St. John Paul II said, life is always a good. And if you stick with that life decision, you will never regret it. Never. You don't see people marching down the street with babies in strollers saying, regret giving birth to this kid, do you? No, but we've got the women standing up saying, I regret my abortion. They regret their abortion. They don't regret giving birth ever. So that's what I have to say. And I can even judge, I mean, come on, Jacob, I can go on and on. I mean, about even.

Jacob Barr (45:58)
No.

Janet Morana (46:12)
Fetal anomalies too, those cases too. You there's such a thing called perinatal hospice where they bring that again, the baby as far as long as possible, deliver the baby. Some of those babies only live for a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, you know, but it's beautiful because why? They get to name the child. They have a proper burial and if there's other children in the family, they all get to come in and see that baby and hold that baby. There's proper closure.

Not that that baby is ripped apart piece by piece in a late term abortion. It's horrible, painful for the mother and the baby. Giving birth is the answer and perinatal hospice will help you through it. So like I always say, there's never a reason to have an abortion. And with my book, everything you need to know about abortion, ⁓ and you can get it at our online store at prolifeproducts.org. Never a reason to have an abortion and I can show you why.

Jacob Barr (47:09)
Yeah. I interviewed

a mom who was from Canada a few weeks ago and, and she was having twins and the doctor was not a pro-life doctor, but she didn't have a choice in Canada based on their healthcare system. And they were telling her that they wanted her to have a reduction going from two to one and abort one of the children because one of the children, one of her children had a, a defect.

Janet Morana (47:32)
yeah.

Jacob Barr (47:38)
But then after the baby, she chose life in the midst of all of that and they were able to do surgery after the baby was born. And now the baby, think is, I want to say seven years old or six years old, you know, went way beyond the expectation of that doctor who was promoting a reduction. That was the word that they were using to.

Janet Morana (48:01)
Yeah, they use

a reduction term. That's very common. And that's the danger too with this IVF stuff that goes on is then if it takes too well and they have too many babies, they want to do a reduction. And the terrible thing about the reduction, not only is that you're aborting these children, is that the way it's done. Two ways. Number one, they tell you the sex of the baby so you can pick which one you want to kill. Or the other reason is based on their positioning.

it's easier for us to get this one so we could terminate this one, not this one because of the positioning and the uterus. It's horrible. It's terrible. And in fact, in my book, I wrote a story about a couple. They're from New York. And actually the story was in the New York Times, I found it. And it was one of these selective reduction cases.

And ⁓ this girl had used IVF because she had trouble getting pregnant. You know, she had waited till her late 30s, 40s, couldn't get pregnant. So now she was using IVF and it worked too well. She had twins, pregnant with twins. And she wanted the doctor to do a reduction because she only wanted one baby. She didn't want to. And the husband was broken hearted. He was begging her, no, let's have both babies, both babies. She said, either.

We abort one or I will terminate the entire pregnancy. And he felt so trapped. He said, either I save one or I save none. So I guess we have to just save the one. Imagine that. Imagine that. And this is what goes on. I mean, it's like horrible, horrible, horrible. So IVF, of course, I don't agree with IVF at all because that creates all kinds of other problems. It's using...

Jacob Barr (49:33)
Mmm.

Yeah, I-

Janet Morana (49:51)
as a commodity, you know, that's what it is, you know.

Jacob Barr (49:53)
Yeah. So we,

so we sort of have had to navigate a, a line on IVF. So I would say I'm opposed to IVF, but for, for the frozen embryos, I'm in favor of them being adopted and not creating more frozen embryos. That's where I would sort of like navigate my line.

Janet Morana (50:08)
Yeah.

Well, and I agree with that, we have so many of these babies are sitting in in cryovac freezing that and there's so many couples who are having trouble conceiving. And if they're willing to adopt some of those frozen embryos, I think they call them snowflake babies now. ⁓ Yeah, so like an action. Yes, that's better. But see, it should be. But I, I know. Right.

Jacob Barr (50:28)
Snowflakes, yeah, snowflake adoption. So yeah, it's not ideal. It's not ideal that since we have snowflake babies, I think it's ideal to not, yeah, to honor

them.

Janet Morana (50:41)
But IVF should be a no from the get-go. We shouldn't go down that road. And there's multiple reasons. And number one is the drugs they give women to do what's called hyper ovulate for them to do the collection are not good drugs. They can be harmful to women over the years. And the biggest thing is, talk about exploitation. Women on college, young girls on college campuses are being exploited by this egg donation because there's signs up.

and they exist in college newspapers and on campus for egg donation and some of these girls can get paid up to ten thousand dollars per collection. Now think about a girl who's got a big fat tuition bill and if she could do one collection of her eggs every semester and get ten grand towards her tuition, go picture that. So you want to talk about exploitation of women? That's exploitation of women.

Jacob Barr (51:32)
Hmm.

Janet Morana (51:38)
And then for these couples that get that want to use these egg donors, it's weird science because what they can do is they go to the IVF doctor who's going to do the process. And let's say it's going to be her husband's sperm, but this donor's eggs, because let's say she doesn't have enough eggs or whatever her problem is, they can actually pick. They have the characteristics of the egg donors.

And now they're tailor picking their baby, basically on here's half of the DNA that's gonna go in. And ⁓ I like a redhead. look, this donor's red-haired. We have a greater chance of having a redhead then, or this or that. Jacob, this is bizarre. And it just shows you when you tamper with God's creation, this is what you get. You get this weird science, and it's so immoral. It's so terrible.

I just pray we can wake people up, that we really can wake them up. That once you start going down this slippery slope, it just gets worse and worse and worse. And I always say, there's never a reason to have an abortion and we can help you no matter what the case is. There's always, always an answer to help you choose life, always.

Jacob Barr (52:59)
Wow. Well, Janet, this has been such a good, you know, interview or just having you share your stories has been so enlightening and just encouraging. ⁓ Before we wrap up, do have any final thoughts you'd like to share? ⁓ And then maybe I'll ask you to close in prayer after that.

Janet Morana (53:17)
All right. Well, I mean, the thoughts are that basically I want anyone, mom, dad, grandparent, anyone who's experienced an abortion to know we're here for you. There's healing available. Go to abortionforgiveness.com. See where you can find that healing. All right. And if you want to learn about more of these stories like I've been telling you about, we have a web page. Go to abortiontestimony or testimonies, either one works.com.

And we have them all sorted there. So you can, you want to read rape and incest stories, click, click rape and incest. And those are the testimonies you can read. These are all women for the past over 20 plus years, we've been collecting testimonies for Silent No More. And their stories are there for public consumption. They're up there. These women want you to use their stories to change hearts and minds. So do that, use them, right? Use them and let us to the editor. If you're going to give a pro-life talk, quote for some stories.

Because his stories convince people it's better than all the political rhetoric that's out there. Use these testimonies to change hearts and minds so that you can get maybe a girl to not consider that abortion. We know the girls of Women of Silent No More, they're out there in front of the abortion clinics with their I regret signs, ready to have these conversations with girls going in to kill their babies. They say, don't do it. Listen to me. I went down that road. It was a dead end. Don't follow it.

Come talk to me, there's help here. So I want people to know that there's never ever ever a reason ⁓ to have an abortion, never. And the pro-life movement, we're here for you. ⁓ We're here to help you. And when you think about it, Jacob, there's three times the amount of pregnancy help centers, almost four times now ⁓ nationwide than there are abortion clinics. Abortion clinics are down to about 600.

And pregnancy centers are close to 3,000 nationwide between Heartbeat, Care Net, Nifflr, and all the cooperative groups. And you know what? The pregnancy centers are real, real help. They're not just about diapers and formula. No. They have classes, parenting classes. They help them even after the baby is born. And for those who want to make an adoption plan, they help them with that.

Jacob Barr (55:20)
Damn.

Janet Morana (55:39)
And then the other final thing is to realize that there's safe haven laws. And this is something that most people don't talk about. All 50 states of America, we have safe haven laws, which means you can walk in, give birth to the baby and walk out of the hospital, no questions asked and say, I can't raise the child. And then you don't even make the adoption plan. The state does. The state will get a loving family for your child. And if you bring the baby home, you have a certain amount of time, depending on the state, to bring that baby.

to an emergency room or a fire station and just no question, again, your name's not attached to the baby. Cause some people they're afraid of making an adoption plan that they don't want the kid finding them. Well, if you use the safe Haven law, the baby, you're not attached to that baby any longer. And so therefore you can make, it's almost like an anonymous adoption because you're just surrendering your child and the state will make an adoption plan for you. It's a great way to do it.

And some states, give you four weeks if you bring the baby home, some eight weeks. In fact, it's ironic, New Mexico, which has late term abortion laws there, they allow you to surrender the baby safe haven up to like the baby's three months old. It's ironic. Where they kill the baby the latest, they give you the longest time for safe haven. So I encourage everyone, promote safe haven. Every state has it and the shame is most people don't know about it. And then finally,

Jacob Barr (57:04)
Before, before,

yeah go ahead.

Janet Morana (57:06)
Finally, go to our Priest For Life website, prolifecentral.com. All the information is there. If you want my book, Everything You Need To Know About Abortion For Teens, just go to our online store at prolifeproducts.org. Okay?

Jacob Barr (57:19)
So Janet, one more question before you pray at the end here. When it comes to these abortion stories, how might a church use them from the pulpit as a way of encouraging people about this important work that someone could get involved in?

Janet Morana (57:35)
Well, a minister can quote from the stories in his sermon. He had free to do that. We have some video testimonies and we have them done like in a conglomeration where there's a video where you could show a grouping of them or he could just play a testimony of a father, play a testimony of a mom. There's a lot of ways to use it. They're up there and if they're up there, it means the person signed already or released to put their testimony up on the internet.

So full permissions already been granted and I encourage them use the stories. That's what convinces people when you quote from a real person who can talk about the damage. We have stories up there from the chemical abortions and everything. Women seeing their baby in the toilet and panicking. my gosh, some of them flush the baby and then others try to scoop the baby up and then put it in a shoe box and bury it in their yard. Terrible, sad stories. So use the stories.

to change hearts and minds. Use the stories.

Jacob Barr (58:35)
Yeah. Well, thank you, Janet. ⁓ Will you close out the podcast in a prayer and we'll invite those who are listening to join in.

Janet Morana (58:43)
sure. Well, let us pray brothers and sisters and let us pray right now for all the women who are expecting a child that they embrace that pregnancy with joy and never ever consider terminating the life of that baby. Let them let them choose life and let's also Lord turn our prayers to all those who are hurting. We have a nation of people hurting so many decades of having abortions.

So many women and men, mothers and fathers are hurting from their prior abortion and keeping it secret. Let them know the mercy of Jesus is here for them. Let them reach out to get that mercy through Rachel's Vineyard and other abortion recovery programs. Let them embrace the healing that Jesus has for them. Because it only goes one way, Lord, we know when they're converted, they become disciples of fool of Jesus Christ. So let's pray that we.

heal our nation and therefore bring more people to the Lord. And we ask this for Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jacob Barr (59:41)
Amen. All right, let me put, I'll stop.

Janet Morana (59:43)
Amen.