UPDATED WITH STORY: Pro-life RV tour comes to Bayou Vista church

BAYOU VISTA — Louisiana Right to Life is sending an RV, emblazoned with an anti-abortion message, across the state as a pre-session elbow to the ribs of legislators, a reminder that last year’s Dobbs decision didn’t end the struggle.

The RV stopped at Bayou Vista’s St. Bernadette Catholic Church on Tuesday morning, drawing a crowd of about 35 people for a short program. The program focused not just on opposition to abortion but on area centers designed to give women help with carrying their babies to term and caring for them afterward.

The RV tour’s mission, said Alex Seghers of Louisiana Right to Life, is “to make sure we send ripples across the state and keep Louisiana pro-life. ...

“If we want our culture to change along with our laws, we have to continue educating the citizens and make sure every community in Louisiana knows how to help.”

Louisiana, where the Legislature and governors have been overwhelmingly anti-abortion for at least 30 years, is among the states that had laws in place to ban abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

But new battlegrounds have emerged, including access to pharmaceuticals that can induce abortion. A study by the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization, found that 54% of U.S. abortions in 2020 were done with pills.

Choice advocates say the pills provide abortion access to women coping with laws that reversed a 50-year-old right. On the pro-life side, internet access to such pills make women vulnerable to unregulated, possibly dangerous or ineffective drugs.

One of the “trigger” laws awaiting Supreme Court action was signed by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who describes himself as pro-life. But in a statement after Roe was overturned in June, Edwards noted that he had asked for an exception for victims of rape or incest.

“As I have said many times before, I believe women who are survivors of rape or incest should be able to determine whether to continue with a pregnancy that is the result of a criminal act,” Edwards said.

The driver of the Right to Life RV has a different view.

Dustin Bertrand of Abbeville told the Bayou Vista audience that, when he was filling out college-related health forms, his mother told him that he had been conceived as the result of rape.

Bertrand rejects the argument that he is a reminder of a traumatic event. His mother says she’d have no choice but to remember the crime anyway. And he said he has a strong bond with his mother.

“I’m sharing my testimony,” Bertrand said before the program. “I’m here to do both — support the mothers and protect the babies.”

The program featured information from centers that provide services such as pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, material assistance, counseling and parental training, all to provide alternatives to abortions.

Representatives made presentations of behalf of Crossroads in Thibodaux, Hope Restored in Houma and the Unplanned Pregnancy Center in New Iberia, which plans to open a location in Franklin soon.

Jennifer Boutte of the Unplanned Pregnancy Center said the organization runs the Mom and Babes Boutique with “everything a mom needs for her baby!” according to a boutique brochure.

Proceeds from the boutique at 117 E. Pershing St., New Iberia, go to the clients, Boutte said. Clients can earn “baby bucks” for use at the boutique by attending sessions at the center.