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Defend Life Lecture Series

GO OUT ON A LIMB, SULLIVAN URGES PRO-LIFERS

Barry Sullivan’s mother’s birthday is January 22.

Sullivan still remembers January 22, 1973, when his mom’s birthday coincided with the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade.

“Right after we celebrated her birthday, she was on the phone with her friends, saying, ‘What can we do about this?’” he told the Patapsco Knights of Columbus in Catonsville October 26.

Sullivan, now a nuclear engineer for the Department of Energy,  grew up in a “right-of-center” Catholic family in which his parents taught faith and morals to their six children by both word and example.

Several years ago, his gratitude to his parents for his upbringing  motivated him to start giving talks about how important it is to live out your faith, especially in the defense of life.

Several events in his life “really got me focused,” he said.  

They include the time when, as a boy, he was bicycling across some railroad tracks and came within 20 feet of being killed by a speeding train.

His upbringing and experiences have led him to develop four principles for living:

1. Live each day as if it were your last.  Keep before yourself the Last Four Things:  death, judgment, heaven and hell.
2. See Jesus in everyone, even yourself.
3. Every day we either get closer to God or further away:  there is no standing still.
4. We are born “clinging to the tree trunk” instead of going out on a limb.  But when you get out on a limb and expose yourself to risks for a good cause, good things happen

 “One of the things my folks did to get us away from the tree trunk was to take us to religious talks,” Barry recalled.

“It sent a message to me that these things were important.”

When he was a 14-year-old in Chicago, his dad took him along to participate in a program called Handicapped Day Out.

“I saw double amputees, quadriplegics; but the guy I helped out was the happiest guy I ever met,” he remembered.  “To this day, when I feel sorry for myself, I think about these people.”

In 1985, when a condom distribution program began in Chicago’s South Side public schools, Barry’s mother founded an abstinence program for public schools called Project Reality.

“My mom was the only white person helping four black ministers fight this,” he said.  “When she went into the inner city schools, kids told her, ‘You are the first person who told us we didn’t have to go to bed with someone.’

“We have to go out on a limb and tell kids these things!” he emphasized.

Kathleen Sullivan’s courageous abstinence program earned her appearances on “Oprah,” Nightline” and the “Focus on the Family” show.

Today, the Project Reality program serves more than 100,000 students per year in Illinois alone, and has spread to 23 states.

Mrs. Sullivan’s pro-life work inspired her children to do the same.  Barry took part in Operation Rescue blockades at abortion clinics, at one of which he was arrested in 1987, and his twin sister worked at a crisis pregnancy center in Rhode Island.

On the same day that Barry and his wife learned that they would probably be unable to have children, he got the news that his sister had a pregnant client who wanted her baby to go to a Catholic family with no children.

“A month later, my daughter, Kristen, was born on my wife’s birthday,” he said.

When Kristen was 6 years old, the Sullivans were able to adopt their son, Nathan, whose birth mom Kathleen Sullivan had met through the Project Reality program.

The highlight of Sullivan’s pro-life efforts came in 1992, when he vied for the Republican nomination to run against Eastern Shore Democratic Congressman Roy Dyson.

Because Dyson’s congressional seat was deemed vulnerable, there were eight Republican candidates – half were pro-life, half pro-abortion.

At a formal debate between the candidates, the final question was, “Would each of you support every Republican candidate running for office?”

“The guys ahead of me said, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll support any Republican candidate,’” said Sullivan.

But when they came to him, he said, “I’d have a hard time supporting a candidate who was pro-abortion.”

His blunt answer was a show-stopper.

At a reception following the debate, “It was like an E.F. Hutton commercial,” Sullivan recalled.  “When I walked in, everyone stopped talking and looked at me!”

A young coed confronted him, saying she disagreed with his stance.  But after he explained why he was against abortion, she offered to work for his campaign.

At a later candidate dinner, one of the pro-abortion candidates  railed, “All these guys who are pro-life – how many children have they adopted?”

When it was Sullivan’s turn to speak, he retorted, “Oh, by the way, Charlie, I have already adopted one of the children you would want to abort (Applause).

“And if you know of a girl who is pregnant and doesn’t want the child, I’ll be glad to adopt her baby (More applause).

Sullivan finished second of the eight candidates in the Republican primary.

“I didn’t win, but I’m known for standing up for what I believe in,” he noted.

Sullivan’s belief in “going out on a limb” extends to showing graphic pictures of aborted babies.

“In high school, they showed us a film on the Holocaust – all the bodies piled up waiting to be incinerated, and so forth.  

“Nobody ever said, don’t show those pictures.  Yet we’ve had five times as many children aborted as people killed in the Holocaust.”

We all condemn Pontius Pilate because he washed his hands of responsibility, Sullivan pointed out.

“But when we don’t fight against abortion, we are washing our hands of responsibility.

“Be the guy who stands up for what you believe in!” he urged.