By Valerie Schmalz
The testimony of Edgar Pacheco Jr., a Texas disability activist born with no arms or legs due to the rare congenital condition tetra-amelia, put a very compelling human face on the importance of faith and God at the Oct. 18 Pro-Life San Francisco fundraiser.
“The encouragement I bring to all of you tonight is keep going, keep fighting, keep moving forward,” said Pacheco, who due to an unexpected medical emergency spoke via video from Texas and said he hoped to be in San Francisco very soon. Pacheco’s efforts on behalf of expanding support for children with disabilities in education resulted in passage of the Texas Edgar Pacheco Jr. Act in 2021.
“Whatever your circumstances, whatever your situation, wherever God has placed you or you have placed yourself, if you are making an impact do not let anyone tell you otherwise,” said Pacheco, whose parents resisted medical advice to abort him. “Because what society wants us to do is shut up. Shut up and not talk about the lives they are murdering, the babies they are killing–they want us to shut up and tell them yes, you are right, go ahead.”
Approximately 100 people gathered at St. Mary’s Event Center for a fundraiser to support Pro-Life San Francisco, a non-sectarian activist organization founded nine years ago by an atheist, and since 2023 led by executive director Melanie Salazar, the married Catholic mother of a 1-year-old toddler.
Many were touched by Pacheco’s witness.
“Thank you for living your life as a living testimony,” said Tammy Mahaney, a nurse practitioner who attended with colleagues from Bella Primary Care. Father Juan Manuel Lopez, who traveled from his parish of Church of the Assumption in Tomales, told Pacheco, “I admire your faith. Thank you for giving such witness to Jesus.”
Pacheco’s talk followed the in-person presentation by Catholic University of America’s Prof. Michael New, who for decades has poked holes in the narrative of the pro-abortion industry and Saturday did not disappoint.
He said that before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade, statistics from impartial and pro-abortion sources told the same story—the rates of abortion declined.
New is assistant professor of practice at the Busch School of Business at Catholic University of America and a senior associate at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. He has a master’s degree in statistics and a doctorate in political science from Stanford University.
“California is really stepping up and building a Culture of Life,” said New, who often posts on his Facebook page while sidewalk counseling at Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C. He spent part of the day before his talk praying outside the Bush Street Planned Parenthood facility in San Francisco.
Nationally, from 1990 to 2019, the abortion rate fell 48 percent, New said.
From 1984 to 2020, California’s abortion rate fell by 59.7 percent, New said.
Nationally, and in California, the decline is due to an exponential increase in the number of pregnancy resource centers, a drop in abortion and Planned Parenthood facilities, restrictive state laws in many ‘red’ states, and overall publicity efforts that counter the pro-abortion mantras with a pro-woman narrative, he said.
Despite his hopeful message, New acknowledged that post-Dobbs and with the Biden Administration’s removal of restrictions on chemical abortion that allow mail-order delivery of RU-486, abortion rates are creeping up. Pro-life and pro-abortion observers estimate more than 50 percent and as many as 70 percent of abortions are medication abortions.
In addition, while states such as Texas passed legislation banning abortion, other states, including some ‘red’ states expanded abortion after Dobbs.
New said he is confident the pro-life movement will find a way to counter the recent pro-abortion advances, saying, “We will prevail in the end!”
