GCRTL Special Update

Fighting for Life

Thank you to everyone who was able to join us last Monday for our banquet. It was truly a bittersweet evening in so many ways.

If you missed out, it is not too late to support the event and our organization with a donation. You can make a secure gift online or send a check to our office (4900 Reed Rd, Suite 200; Columbus, OH 43220.

We'll be sending a full banquet update soon, along with photos and our favorite highlights from the event. If you'd like to share a comment, reply to this email!

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Saying Goodbye to A Friend

We devastated to share the news that Jerry Freewalt, Director of the Respect Life Office for the Diocese of Columbus, passed away last week. Jerry is shown here in a photograph taken at our banquet.

We were blessed to partner with Jerry through the years.

Jerry was a remarkable person whose advocacy for the the dignity of the human person encompassed and embraced the full human experience. He was one of an ever-shrinking number of faces around the Statehouse whose work defied partisanship lines.

On a personal note, I've worked closely with Jerry in various capacities for nearly 20 years. He cared deeply about people, especially children. Certainly he advocated strongly for the unborn and their families, but he was also a leader when it came to Ohio's law and policy for multi-system youth and their families. He touched just about every issue: rural development, education, criminal justice reform, poverty cessation, and care of creation. In a world where so many conform their faith to their politics, Jerry worked every day to live his faith and take it to politics.

Information on the funeral arrangements and an opportunity to leave a memory for his family can be found here. A “Go Fund Me” has also been set up to assist his family in this time.

Please join us in praying for the rest of Jerry's soul and peace and consolation for all who knew him, especially his family and his colleagues at the Diocese.

Thank you, Jerry, for working every day to bring Jesus to a broken and hurting world.

BREAKING NEWS: Abortion Update & Legal

We also want to share some big news impacting the pro-life world from a legal and policy standpoint.

The first is that, in a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Kavanaugh, the U.S. Supreme Court published an opinion in the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case. This is the case challenging the FDA approval of the abortion pill and some related items. The case held that the pro-life physicians in the case (AHM) did not have standing to sue and reversed the opinion of the appeals court. While disappointing to many, this was not a complete surprise to observers who noted that it hinged on a few fairly technical issues in administrative law. Here is a thoughtful piece by Ed Wheelan on the decision.

The case comes on the heels of a shocking announcement from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute which has published some wide-sweeping updates on the status of abortion in the US. The first was their declaration that abortions in the U.S. had increased to over 1 million in 2023.

Specifically, the organization reported that 1,037,190 clinician-provided abortions took place in U.S. states without an abortion ban in 2023. This was an 11% increase since 2020, and marked the first time since 2012 that U.S. abortions had exceeded a million. The org also announced that the number of medication abortions nationally increased to 63% in 2023. In 2020 medication abortion accounted for about half of all abortions.

We often use Guttmacher statistics in looking at national statistics because many states do not report abortion statistics to the CDC, whereas we presume most abortions are likely volunteered to the researchers with Guttmacher.

The organization also provided an estimate of Ohio abortions, suggesting a 13% increase in the number of abortions that were committed in 2023 compared to 2020.

It is important to note two things about the Guttmacher statistics. The first is that it accounts ONLY for abortions performed or provided in a clinical setting. This means that any abortion pill that is provided illegally (often by ordering online) is not counted. The second is that the official Ohio statistics will be available in early fall.

Still, this is harrowing information that we will continue to review and report back. You can access the Guttmacher information on their website.

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