After Dobbs, people turn out for annual Life Chain

PATTERSON -- On an October Sunday in each of the last 10 years, members of Patterson's St. Joseph Catholic Church have made their way a few blocks to U.S. 90 to make their case for banning abortion.

In June this year, anti-abortion forces won their greatest victory: the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned the Roe and Casey decisions that prohibited states from outlawing abortion.

But St. Joseph members, joined by people from nearby Bethel Pentecostal Fellowship, were back on U.S. 90 Sunday for their annual Life Chain demonstration anyway, waving to passing vehicles and waving signs.

"It's like why do we have a military when we don't have a war," said the Rev. Herb Bennerfield III, St. Joseph's pastor. "We won a battle, but we're still in a culture war."

Dobbs or not, about 80 people showed up for this year's Life Chain. One of them was Brenda Guillotte of Franklin, who has taken part in Rosaries at the Church of the Assumption but was attending her first Life Chain.

"You can't ever stop," Guillotte said.

Among those who joined her was Angela Stelly, the pro-life coordinator for St. Joseph.

The Supreme Court decision leaves the decision of whether to ban abortion to individual states, Stelly said. Some states and some cities are promoting themselves as abortion sanctuaries, she said.

"I guess the legal part is only one part," Stelly said. "The other part is our culture.

"There has to be a change in the culture to where we value life, whether it's at the point of fertilization or the end of life."

The culture war is reflected in a political war. Trigger laws, which imposed abortion bans in many red states, including Louisiana, were set to take effect the minute the Siupreme Court overturned Roe.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has a proposed a nationwide abortion ban at the federal level.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has taken the side of pro-abortion-rights advocates, who say the Dobbs decision takes away a constitutional right women have been able to exercise for half a century.

Some observers saw signs of a political backlash in August, when a statewide abortion ban in Kansas went down to a surprise defeat at the polls.

Bennerfield said that's another reason pro-life forces continue their fight.

"What happened in Kansas can happen here," he said.