SPUC’s chief strength lies in the work of its grassroots branches. Pro-life people, striving to take life-affirming action within their local neighbourhoods, are what makes the work of SPUC unique, and ensures that change at local and national levels is possible.

Today, we speak with Frances Levett, chairman of the SPUC Rutland and Melton Branch. Frances tells us, “Good and evil are in conflict everywhere, but there are quieter and more active sectors. If you are pro-life, you will not have a quiet time. This is the frontline.”

1. Can you tell us about your pro-life values? In a pro-abortion world, what drives you to keep your pro-life values and advocate for unborn children and mothers?

I believe passionately that everyone’s life is of equal value. When I was a young teenager at school, my English teacher told us we were going to have a “balloon debate”: Four people in a sinking balloon; one must go overboard to save the others, and each person had to make a case for why their life was too important for them to be discarded. Then we were all to vote on which one was to go overboard.

At first, I thought she was joking. When it dawned on me that she was serious, and we were expected to do this, I was furious. I thought it was totally obvious that you couldn’t do it, and nobody should be expected to, because schools should be teaching that everyone, no matter how small, disabled or weak, had an equally valuable life. I was convinced it was deeply immoral to put the thought into anyone’s mind that some people could be disposable. My answer to the “balloon dilemma”, if it came to it, would be to try to save all four, and if impossible, to draw straws!

I was born in the 1950s, and World War II felt very close. I gradually learned about the horrors of the Nazi euthanasia programme and the Holocaust. This distressed me, because it had happened so recently, so close to home, and those who did these awful things were human beings just like me. How had it come to that? How did normal, decent people come to believe that other people were “sub-human”, and so were indifferent to their fate? Could it all happen again?

Then I found out that abortion had just been legalised in my country. I wasn’t sure what that meant at first, but when I found out, I thought, “Hey you can’t justify killing babies! This is the same sort of thinking that started the Nazi atrocities. It hasn’t gone away!”

Over the years, that thought has kept me going: that if we accept this, if we fail to stand up for the right to life of every human person, then we are on the road to producing a society like that of the Nazi regime. I cannot live with the thought that my children and grandchildren might have to live in such a society, and I did not do my utmost to fight it. And it is a real battle.

Good and evil are in conflict everywhere, but there are quieter and more active sectors. If you are pro-life, you will not have a quiet time. This is the frontline.

2. When did you decide to become involved with SPUC branch work, and why did you decide to get involved?

I was only 17 when I joined SPUC. My boyfriend was pro-life, but nobody else shared my vision. I tried asking people at my church, but they all shied away. So I started walking around the city, visiting every church I could find. Finally, one minister gave me the name and address of a man who he said shared my views, and told me to go and talk to him, so I called on him in his small bedsit. I just knocked on his door out of the blue. He was a young teacher who had a much better idea than I had about how to organise pro-life work, and he wanted to start a branch of SPUC. I helped him and learned a lot about how to proceed, but I was much more interested in dealing with people one-to-one and doing the work than I was in setting up groups.

Then I got married. I was busy setting up a home and bringing up a child, and I didn’t want to get involved with starting a branch. The one we had started in the city was still going, and had expanded to cover the county, and I thought that was OK. I still did lots of work lobbying my MP, and I got a small group of people in my town to help me. But as the years passed, the small group became a bigger one. The county branch collapsed, but I was in contact through my work with pro-lifers in every part of the county. They all knew me, because they had helped me with one job or another, but they didn’t know each other! So, as many of them had not joined the national SPUC, I was responsible for contacting them all and letting them know what action I would like them to take on various things. In my own area, I had so many people I started sending them a newsletter. It was getting too big to manage on my own.

So, I started a branch in each of the different constituencies nearby, and finally, I started the one in my own town, which is still going today, 32 years later.

3. Can you tell us about your branch and the activities or initiatives your branch is involved in and how it helps to promote a culture of life in your community?

Over the years, we have been involved with many different activities. When we first started, we gave sets of fetal models to many local schools, and the school nurses, the pre-nursing course at the local college, and several doctors’ surgeries. Recently we approached local schools again and found them delighted to accept another set – the original ones having gone missing years previously. We have established good relationships with teachers who are pleased to accept resources. In the past, we gathered a group of local doctors who opposed euthanasia, and we coordinated their representations to our MP.

It is of course very important to try to reach out to women, and men, who are suffering because of abortion. Our branch has had lots of different initiatives in this area. At one end of the scale, we advertise the post-abortion helpline in our local free monthly magazine; and at the other end, we have organised a Study Day on post-abortion symptoms and support at one of the main city hospitals, which was attended by over 80 health professionals. The Abortion Recovery Care and Helpline (ARCH), then known as BVA, ran the course. Several of our branch members, along with ARCH representatives, have visited and had discussions with staff who perform abortions at two of the major city hospitals. The staff were requesting details about post-abortion counselling for inclusion in patient literature. At one meeting the sister in charge, requested one of the little feet badges which we wore. She fastened it to her uniform while we were there. Tiny Feet badges are very popular, we order them in bulk and distribute them to pro-life people and groups.

For our 25th anniversary, we ran a free Fun Day in the town centre, hiring a fairground organ to attract attention and running all sorts of activities, as well as a display of the history of the branch. The mayor opened it for us, and in the evening, we had a speaker from SPUC HQ and a free showing of the film “The Drop Box”. 

4. What would you say to someone who is considering joining/starting a SPUC branch?

Do it! You will never regret it.

Belonging to SPUC is like being part of a big family where everyone shares the same values. You will feel affirmed, you will not be lonely, and you will be much less likely to become discouraged or think there is nothing you can do. I have made some of my best and lifelong friends within the pro-life movement. Pro-lifers are caring people.

If I find someone doing a White Flower Appeal or running an event, and I say “I’m the chairman of my local branch”, they welcome me and I’m at home straight away. So don’t worry that you would not be very good at starting a branch or think you have nothing to offer, just try it and you will be amazed at how much you will learn and be able to do.

5. Pro-abortion activists often mischaracterize pro-lifers as “anti-woman” or “extremists”. How would you respond to the ongoing vilification and mischaracterisation of the pro-life community?  

This is certainly a problem. People who are not familiar with the pro-life movement often get this impression when they hear pro-abortion people speaking of us, and it puts them off involvement in pro-life work. It can also discourage our own supporters from participating in activities, especially if they are shy, because it can be very daunting to feel you will be labelled and perhaps confronted.

I think we need to be aware of our image and always try to emphasise the compassionate nature of the pro-life movement. It is always important to demonstrate just how much we care about women and girls.

As for actually addressing pro-abortionists: I would tell them that I respect them and think they are valuable too, even if they hate me.

6. What words of encouragement or hope would you give to those who believe that the pro-life cause is lost?

It is definitely not lost. The case for abortion is based on lies. During my time in the pro-life movement, I have been amazed at the lies and dishonesty. And I know lies cannot last forever – the truth will always be seen, eventually.

There have always been dark times in history. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles tell us that during the reign of Stephen, “Men said openly that God and his saints slept.” But that time passed, and so will the one we are in now; it is not here forever. And even if it outlasts my lifetime, I want to have been a small factor in bringing about the final victory.

7. Please finish the sentence; “I am pro-life because...”

I am pro-life because I love people. I believe everybody’s life is of equal value, and I oppose cruelty, oppression and injustice.