NELLIE GRAY, PROLIFE HERO
January 2013
Nellie Jane Gray (June 24, 1924 – August 2012) was an American pro-life activist who founded the annual March for Life in 1974, following the Supreme Court ruling Roe v Wade, which decriminalized abortion the previous year. This year’s march, to be held on Friday, January 25, is being dedicated to the memory of this leading figure in the movement to support life.
Born in and a native of Big Spring, Texas, and later a Roman Catholic convert, she enlisted on June 27, 1944, at Camp Bennett, Texas, and served as a corporal in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) during World War II. She later earned a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s in economics from Georgetown University Law School. She was an employee of the federal government for 28 years, working in the Departments of State and Labor, while attending Georgetown University Law School. She found herself practicing law before the U.S. Supreme Court. After Roe v Wade, she retired from professional life and became a pro-life activist, beginning with the March for Life.
Those are the facts, summarized succinctly by Wikipedia, of Nellie Gray’s life, but they hardly do justice to this hero of the prolife movement. Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston once said some consider Nellie Gray the “Martin Luther King Jr. of the pro-life civil rights movement. But to me,” he added, “she’s...the Joan of Arc of the Gospel of life.” Gray helped found and later became president of the March for Life in the nation’s capital first held January 22, 1974. The organization had its beginnings in her living room, where she met with members of the Knights of Columbus to plan the first march, which attracted an estimated 20,000 participants.
Nellie Gray did not flinch from telling the truth about abortion in the United States: “The feminist movement has manipulated popular opinion with language like ‘pro-choice’ and a ‘woman’s right to privacy,’” she said. “After fighting against evil in World War II, I get very upset that we have Americans trying to justify abortion,” she added. “Somehow a juggernaut of evil has grown in this country, including Catholics who vote for pro-choice candidates. We will never win this fight until this juggernaut is exposed and eliminated. I just don’t know how we’re going to do it.”
Father Frank Pavone of the Priests for Life organization said of Nellie Gray: “As a colleague in national pro-life leadership, Nellie is always an inspiration to the rest of us. Her determination is seen, for instance, in how, last year, despite the fact that she fell on the day of the March for Life and was in the hospital that night, she nevertheless was present at an all-day meeting of national leaders the very next morning, with a patch on her head.”
Nellie Gray was 88 when she died in August 2012. May she rest in peace.
Information from Catholic News Service.