A rich, respect-life history began in Minnesota with family, friends and neighbors gathering in dining rooms, at social events and in parishes.
As the nation marks the first March for Life in Washington, D.C., since the June 24 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion across the country, three pioneers of the pro-life movement in the land of 10,000 lakes spoke about their experiences then and now, as well as their hopes for the future.
Ann Dickinson said she views the late 1960s and early 1970s as a “maelstrom of activity” for pro-life. A member of St. Joseph in West St. Paul, Dickinson, 82, said at that time some states had begun moving toward legalized abortion. Pro-life Minnesotans “knew that something was in the air, so a group of people just started talking about it and started MCCL, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life,” Dickinson said.
“It was apparent that the threat of legalized abortion was looming over us,” said Jo Tolck, 78 — who lives in New Hope and is a member of St. Raphael in Crystal.
Early stages of the pro-life movement in Minnesota began with MCCL — founded by Darla St. Martin and David Osteen in 1968 — and with statewide chapters of Birthright — founded by Louise Summerhill in 1968 in Toronto, Canada.
Both organizations remain active today. Birthright chapters offer maternal and baby items as well as medical and counseling referrals, while MCCL chapters use education, legislation and political action to carry out the organization’s mission to protect life at conception and through natural death.
As time marched on, other prominent pro-life organizations began forming and had a national influence. In 1977, Minneapolis-based Human Life Alliance (HLA) was founded to reach people through education, and 1981 saw the formation of St. Paul-based Pro-Life Action Ministries and prayer circles outside abortion clinics. Minneapolis-based Pro-Life Across America was founded in 1989, and it continues to put up billboards for life across the country.
“It was a bunch of people; we all knew each other, and we talked to each other,” Dickinson said. “We all thought we had the answer to what the pro-life movement needed, and it was good because then we just concentrated on what our little job was for God.”
A desire to be involved was sparked in Dickinson when she read an article about Birthright in the Minneapolis Tribune in 1968. She joined a local chapter of the organization in 1969 and worked there as a counselor until 1973.
After abortion became legal across the country in 1973, Dickinson noted that in Minnesota, it was less expensive for a woman to have an abortion than it was for her to deliver her baby. Dickinson founded Cradle of Hope, then known as Project Life, to help women offset the cost of delivery, primarily through fundraisers Dickinson helped organize.
Dickinson hosted meetings at her home and planned fundraising efforts around the dining room table. When she and her family — her husband and then-five children (her sixth and seventh arrived in 1978 and 1982) — moved to a larger home in 1976, meetings continued in her basement. Employees of an insurance agency near Dickinson’s home took note of the gatherings and offered the group rent-free office space, which “made all the difference in the world,” Dickinson said. A lawyer she knew helped set the organization up as a nonprofit and an accountant she knew helped organize the finances. Priests and Knights of Columbus members helped at meetings and fundraisers.
Dickinson recalled being aware of Twin Cities doctors performing abortions “as soon as the law changed in 1973.” She said she would meet them at social events she attended with her husband, who had a medical practice in St. Paul. Though she refrained from publicly arguing about abortion, Dickinson said “I went about my business of helping pregnant women the best way I knew how: by raising funds to help them financially.”
To this day, Dickinson’s Cradle of Hope, based in Roseville, offers financial support to women and families in crisis situations.
Like Dickinson, Tolck’s launch into the pro-life movement came through Birthright, where she helped organize baby clothing and furniture donations to give to mothers in need in north Minneapolis. For a time, her former parish — the now closed St. Austin — allowed her to store those items. “They were very generous in letting us stay there, that parish was,” Tolck said.
Tolck — who has two living children and two children “with Jesus” — said her children helped her in those days. It was a good lesson for them, seeing ways to help those in need, Tolck said. “They always wanted to put more in” the collections of clothing and accessories for newborns, she said.
In the early 1970s, Tolck met friend Ann Olson during a meeting with an MCCL chapter for Minneapolis’ northside. They both lived in the area at the time. Olson said the chapter gatherings “were gratifying because a lot of people would come out to events; we’d have videos or movies and speakers at the local park, and we’d have a couple hundred people show up for events.”
Olson — a 70-year-old Chisago City resident and parishioner of St. Joseph in Taylor’s Falls — said of her and Tolck’s pro-life efforts: “We’ve been working together on one thing or another ever since.”
Olson’s more active role in the pro-life movement began when she learned she was pregnant with her firstborn son — she has three children — in 1974 at a northside Minneapolis clinic. The memory stands out, she said, because “the first thing the nurse said when she came back (after assisting with Olson’s pregnancy test) was, ‘You’re pregnant, do you want to keep it?’” At the time, Olson said she found the interaction “so disturbing,” especially as she considered what could happen with women who weren’t exactly sure how to proceed with their own pregnancies.
At that point, Olson talked with other MCCL members about doing more with the pro-life movement. She connected with Sister Jean Therese, who started University Life Care Center, the state’s first crisis pregnancy center. Sister Jean Therese became an adviser to Olson, and in 1976, Olson and Tolck co-founded Northside Lifecare Center, now Abria Pregnancy Resources.
Through the years, Olson has worked with Human Life Alliance, and with Options for Women of Chisago County since 1991. Tolck, in addition to co-founding the pregnancy center with Olson, worked with HLA, including spending 15 years as its director. Tolck also co-founded Healthcare Advocacy and Leadership Organization (HALO), based in Minneapolis.
“Minnesota was the national leader in the pro-life movement,” Olson said, confirming Dickinson’s assessment of the maelstrom of activity in the pro-life movement in the state in the 1960s and 1970s. “There are many unsung heroes who have worked countless hours to save preborn babies.”
Tolck echoed that sentiment. “The ones here in Minnesota that stand outside Planned Parenthood through PLAM ministries (Pro-Life Action Ministries) and that, those are heroes,” Tolck said.” They’re out there in the cold, helping one baby at a time.”
Tolck and Olson said that going forward, the pro-life conversation also needs to center on end-of-life issues, a mission they have been dedicated to in recent years.
“Respect for life, it’s not just at the beginning but the end,” Tolck said.
In talking about their hopes for the pro-life movement in the future, Dickinson, Olson and Tolck said the movement needs unified action, and progress depends on new generations. It also needs volunteers and prayer, they said.
“(The movement) should be more unified, and we should all work together,” Dickinson said, referring to the need for local pro-life organizations to band closer together after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, returning the issue of abortion to state and federal lawmakers. Dickinson said she thinks pro-life Minnesotans “are feeling a little burnt out and a little depressed, maybe, because they thought this would change everything, but certainly not in Minnesota, it hasn’t at all, because we’re going to be an abortion destination state.”
Olson echoed the call for a more unified approach, saying, “There has to be more unity in the people that work together in the ‘full life’ movement.”
As to future generations, Olson said she’s encouraged to see MCCL offering a pro-life leadership camp for young adults. The Life Leadership Camp offers pro-life education, training and activities. Olson said about half of the roughly 30 participants in last year’s camp are now volunteering at different organizations in Minnesota, including Students for Life of America, according to MCCL.
Olson and Tolck said it is heartening as well to see families involved in the pro-life movement. “I’m always encouraged when I see people out there with their children,” Tolck said of attending various pro-life events, including marches in Minnesota and Washington, D.C.
Dickinson said she hopes active participation will push the pro-life movement into the future. “You’ve got to get off your duff and get out there and do something,” she said. “And you can do anything. You could give money or support a fundraiser or bring diapers to the local life care center or volunteer there. You’re just kind of giving up if you don’t do something. Even if you just pray.”
Tolck agreed, “We need a lot of prayer.”
People also need to hear the respect-for-life message from the pulpit, Olson said, including teachings on the theology of the body and the dignity of each person. “We need our priests to preach the gospel of life. It takes courage,” she said.
In addition to clergy, the Catholic laity need to show courage, Olson said. “We as Catholics need to stand up and speak out. We have to be courageous and tell the truth. It’s not just about the movement, it’s about people’s souls.”
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