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PRO-LIFE HEROES FETED ON APPRECIATION NIGHT

The six pro-lifers receiving awards at the Fourth Annual Pro-Life Appreciation Night in Glen Burnie October 27 are notable not just for what they’ve done for the pro-life movement in the past, but for what they are knee-deep in the middle of doing now.

Take Pamela Palumbo, recipient of the Dr. William Hogan Educational Award.  

The founder of the Bowie-Crofton and Laurel pregnancy centers in the 1980s, Pam is director of the first pregnancy center in Maryland to offer “state-of-the-art” 3D/4D ultrasounds to abortion-minded clients, a first that got front-page coverage this year in the liberal New York Times

But that’s old news for Palumbo who, after accepting the award, described what she saw in a tour of the recently vacated Gynecare abortion mill in Severna Park.

“We walked through those rooms and saw blood stains still on the floor tiles,” she said.

“You all prayed there for 10 years and had eggs thrown at you.  Now we want to reclaim that land and turn it into a place of healing and hope.

“We are working on a lease; I will be talking to the landlord tomorrow!” she promised.

State Senator Andy Harris, who received the Senator Francis X. Kelly Political Action Award, ran on a pro-life platform in 1998 to defeat pro-abortion incumbent Senator Vernon Boozer, who had helped kill a bill to ban partial-birth abortion.

This spring, after legislation to fund embryonic stem cell research passed the House, Minority Whip Harris marshaled his Senate forces against it, threatening a filibuster if the pro-abortion majority faction brought the bill on the floor for a vote.

“We had pro-life senators who were willing to filibuster to the very end,” said Harris.

Faced with this looming threat, Senate President Mike Miller backed down.

“It was a huge victory for the pro-life movement!” said Harris.

Sheila Wharam, winner of the Dr. Jack and Barbara Willke Founders Award, has been a familiar face for decades at legislative hearings in Annapolis and anywhere else where an articulate, enthusiastic and exceptionally well-informed voice on behalf of life is needed.

Wharam, who holds a B.S. degree in biology from Fordham University, has been a tireless pro-life advocate on radio and TV, in political campaigns, and at colleges and public and parochial schools, health fairs, lectures and debates – even going one-on-one with Gloria Steinem.

It 1976 Sheila founded the North Baltimore Pro-Life Study Group; it’s still going strong and so is she.

The Marilyn Lee Szewczyk Pro-Life Service Award went to Paul Mulligan, director of the Gabriel Project, a network of over a thousand volunteers in 65 churches who help more than two thousand women and their babies through crisis pregnancies each year.

Under Mulligan’s leadership, Gabriel Project’s maternity housing programs have been completely revamped, a new home was opened in Silver Spring, and two more homes in Annapolis and Gaithersburg will open soon.

Paul has also launched programs to help client moms with scholarships for education and professional development, health classes, computers, adoption awareness, and car donations to provide needy moms with reliable transportation.

Brother-and-sister team James and Martha Nolan received the James A. Miller/Robert G. Haase Hero Award for achieving an “impossible dream” that only the young and incredibly idealistic would dare:  a walk across America proclaiming the pro-life message.

Jim is president and Martha is national director of Crossroads, the sponsor of yearly summer treks in which several dozen college students walk the 3,200 miles from the West Coast to Washington, D.C., witnessing to the sacredness of human life all along the way.

Referring to Pope John Paul II’s 1993 World Youth Day admonition to “go out into the streets and public places like the first Apostles,” Martha told the audience, “We took the Holy Father’s message literally.”

Their impressive efforts continue to change minds and save lives.

Four hundred guests attended the Pro-Life dinner at Michael’s Eighth Avenue, which was sponsored by the law firm of Peroutka & Peroutka and emceed by brothers Stephen and Michael Peroutka.