As part of a new series, we will hear from SPUC branch members around the UK. To start us off, we have Helena, from the East Ayrshire SPUC branch.

My name is Helena Rameckers, and I am a 45 year-old mother of four children ranging in age from 8 to 16. A Speech and Language Therapist by training, I stopped working after the birth of our fourth child, providentially coinciding with a significant promotion for my husband. As my children grew past intensive toddlerdom and pockets of time in my day opened up, I had the great privilege of being able to volunteer in my parish community and the wider Catholic Church. This, through a circuitous and unanticipated route, led to employment within the Diocese of Galloway and I now complement a busy home life with part-time work and some voluntary commitments.

Raised in a strong Irish Catholic tradition, pro-life was just “a given” when I was young. The sanctity and dignity of each human life, the irreplaceable nature of each human being—no matter how small, weak or vulnerable—was embedded into our family, and accepted without question.

Then, I married a man from the Netherlands. The culture differences were fascinating, but I quickly saw that in terms of the emerging “culture of death”, much of what was at that time accepted as normal in the Netherlands was really just an extension of where Scotland was heading. Now, twenty years down the line, a peek into the murky underworld of superficially civilised and “progressive” Dutch society is alarming. With abortion being freely available and even expected, and euthanasia now firmly embedded as a viable medical “treatment”, it has become a part of the nation’s psyche that life is disposable. The suicide rate is staggering, as healthy young people going through a rough patch see death as an escape route. Suffering as sanctification, suffering as growth through learning, suffering as part of life has become an alien concept in an alarmingly short period of time. My laments about the individual tormented souls who have no hope and no value placed on them are dismissed as being quaint and perhaps a little eccentric.

So much for my education in progressive culture. I have observed the demise of a nation’s soul from afar, lamenting how akin to Lord of the World it is (“Individualism was at least so far recognised as to secure to those weary of life the right of relinquishing it”) while remaining inactive. A conversation with some other mothers about our shared experiences as teenagers in the 1990s, and what our own children must be facing, was what really made me pay attention. One of my own experiences stuck with me. I was 18, burning the candle at both ends and stressing over exams, and my menstrual cycle was all over the place, painful and highly irregular. I went to see my GP, who could have told me to get more sleep and eat three balanced meals a day; but instead gave me a prescription for a contraceptive pill, complete with the advice that at 18, I was an adult and didn’t need to tell anyone that I was taking the pill, even if it was “just for medicinal purposes”.

It struck me that, with Scotland going down the same route as the Netherlands, it is not inconceivable that ten years from now, my youngest daughter—so like me in temperament and naivety—could be in a similar situation at the age of 18. Which pill would you like—contraceptive, abortifacient or lethal? And as you’re legally an adult, you don’t need to discuss your choice with anyone. I was haunted by this thought for a couple of weeks, and then out of the blue, SPUC’s Right Side Tour was advertised in my parish bulletin. Sometimes, the hand of the divine conductor is clearly seen orchestrating events, and this seemed to be one of those times. I attended the evening and found that not only are abortion statistics horrifying, and not only is the threat of euthanasia really looming, but the very real damage caused to young women who have bought into the lie that life is disposable is possibly one of our society’s greatest hidden tragedies.

A couple of weeks later, I was contacted by a couple I knew who had also attended the Right Side Tour and asked to join them in establishing a new branch of SPUC to raise awareness of pro-life issues locally. I immediately agreed, and with SPUC Scotland assisting us every step of the way, the actual process of setting up a new SPUC branch was neither complicated nor onerous. Aware of the geographical spread of our diocese, we decided small but regular events in various parts of the diocese would be the best way forward. We quickly became aware of another pro-life group further south in the diocese, and have fostered links with them to share knowledge and experiences.

Pre-COVID, the journey looked set to be rocky but rewarding. If opposition came from unexpected quarters—such as the priest who obstructed a pro-life Rosary initiative for fear of causing offence—so did support—such as the old university friend for whom popping a morning after pill was as much part of Monday mornings as our Child Psychology lectures were. The phrase “two steps forward and one back” seemed to run through my mind on a weekly basis, but small seeds were being planted that I could see were beginning to take root.

Of course, 2020 happened and grassroots movements ceased as people were unable to gather. As a result, timescales and plans have had to be put on hold and revised, and perhaps the branch will look far different in a year’s time when we have adapted to whatever this “new normal” is going to be.

I have learned enough to know that while there will be challenges, and great ones, there remains one fundamental truth that cannot be refuted: each life belongs to a unique and unrepeatable person, and nobody has any right to decide whether another unique and unrepeatable person gets to live or die. I have not heard a single argument to the contrary that doesn’t fall at the hurdle of reasonable discussion, and it is in educating people in how to look beyond media headlines and scratch beneath the surface of ideological arguments that I believe the SPUC branches can excel.

I have been asked more than once whether I think I’ve taken on a battle which has already been lost. My answer to that is, of course not. Fashions come and (usually mercifully) go, fads have their day and disappear, and ideologies win battles and rejoice; but it is always the case that truth eventually conquers. I think C.S. Lewis said it best in Mere Christianity: The world “keep(s) on killing the thing that (Christ) started: and each time, just as they are patting down the earth on its grave, they suddenly hear that it is still alive and has even broken out in some new place. No wonder they hate us.”

If you have been inspired by Helena and want to become involved in your local branch, start a new branch, or otherwise become involved with SPUC, email info@spuc.org.uk for more information.