Mayra Rodriguez once marched loudly for abortion rights.
She stood among pro-choice activists chanting, “My body, my choice,” convinced she was defending women’s freedom. She even brought along her young daughter, training her to echo the same slogans as the two walked side-by-side at women’s marches.
But on a warm April 6 evening in Annapolis, Rodriguez – Planned Parenthood’s 2016 Employee of the Year – stood before several hundred participants at the 47th annual Maryland March for Life with a starkly different message. She urged those gathered to confront what she described as the truth about abortion and its consequences.
“I truly believed what I was doing was good for women,” remembered Rodriguez, who spent 17 years working for Planned Parenthood, rising into leadership roles that included training staff and managing three clinics.
“I used to think we were marching for women,” she said, “but we were not. We were marching for the lies – the lies that sound compassionate, but leave women alone. Lies that promise empowerment, but end life. Lies repeated so many times that they start to feel like truth.”
Rodriguez described her time working for Planned Parenthood in Arizona, where she said complications and consequences of abortion were routinely “minimized.” From inside the organization, she witnessed what she characterized as safety and health-related violations. When she raised concerns, she said, the response was swift and unforgiving.
“I called out the wrongdoing,” she said. “I said, ‘Something’s not right here.’ I questioned what we were doing. And when I refused to stay silent, I was pushed aside.”
The whistleblower was ultimately fired, but later prevailed in a 2019 wrongful termination lawsuit against Planned Parenthood, winning $3 million in damages.
Rodriguez, whose recovered Catholic faith was influential in her journey into the pro-life camp, alleged that Planned Parenthood used her identity as a Hispanic woman to try to “connect and build trust” with Hispanics and “sell the lies.”
“I was being used to bring my own people – to make it feel like the only option and to make them feel they were alone,” she said. “Today, we can see the results. Nearly half of the abortions in this country are in minority communities. That is not by accident.”
This year’s Maryland March for Life had originally been scheduled for March 16 but was postponed after severe weather forced the cancellation of the original date.
Before the march began, Bishop Joseph L. Coffey, an auxiliary bishop with the Archdiocese for U.S. Military Services, celebrated a Respect Life Mass at St. Mary in Annapolis. A nondenominational service was held simultaneously in the school hall.
In his homily, Bishop Coffey observed that even small children understand that what a mother carries in her womb is a baby. He asked those present to pray especially for pro-choice doctors and lawmakers, calling for their conversion to a pro-life perspective.
Following the religious services, participants walked from St. Mary’s Church to Lawyer’s Mall for the rally in the shadow of the State House.
Jonathan Alexandre, legislative counsel for the Maryland Family Institute, provided a legislative update, urging marchers to contact lawmakers about several bills pending in the Maryland General Assembly. He highlighted proposals to protect unborn life once a heartbeat is detected and to require the reporting of abortion statistics in Maryland.
He also called for opposition to measures that would make abortifacient drugs easier to obtain, as well as legislation he said would penalize individuals who provide life-saving care to babies born alive during an abortion.
In a talk at St. Mary, Capuchin Franciscan Father Michael Herlihey noted in his home of Philadelphia, a maternity home was started for pregnant women who do not have places to live. In the last year and a half, 10 babies have been born – some of them to mothers who have had previous abortions.
“The pressure to abort comes from the lack of support,” he said.
During the march, organizers honored Wellspring Life Ministry, a network of pro-life pregnancy resource centers, for its work helping women in need. Other representatives of pro-life pregnancy help centers were also called forth for the crowd to pray over them.
Angela Murray, Wellspring’s director of outreach and operations, described her organization’s presence as being “on the front lines,” serving women in need through clinics in Bowie, Severna Park and Annapolis.
Murray acknowledged that while the overturning of Roe v. Wade was a moment of rejoicing, it “made very little difference here in Maryland,” noting in particular the rise of abortion pills, which now account for nearly 70 percent of abortions.
She reminded attendees that “we aren’t just called by God to speak up and stand against something. We are called by God to stand for someone.”
Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org
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