Helen Alvare is the ideal pro-life spokeswoman: brilliant and beautiful, articulate and charming, summa cum laude graduate of Villanova who received her law degree from Cornell.
Alvare, the American bishops' spokeswoman for pro-life issues, must have confounded many in the media when she came on the scene six years ago. Pro-lifers are raving lunatics, aren't they?
They prowl about abortion mills with bazookas slung over their shoulders and spittle dribbling down their chins, right?
Guess again. This feisty Cuban-Irish woman from Philadelphia has taught the Washington press corps a thing or two about the true face of the right-to-life movement.
One of five children — hers was one of the neighborhood's smaller families — Catholic traditions were observed throughout family life, she says, adding, “We were taught that being in a right relationship with God was the most important thing.”
Even as a youngster she was interested in the pro-life movement.
“We were a pro-life family. That was just understood,” she says. “Everyone was in agreement.”
While her childhood engendered a respect for life, it shaped her in other important ways.
“I was always argumentative from an early age,” she says with a full-throated laugh. “Everyone told me I should go into a line of work where I could argue and get paid for it.”
And that's precisely what she does, though her demeanor is more persuasive than argumentative.
On Nightline, C-SPAN, Firing Line, testifying before Congress, or speaking at conventions, she is compelling and friendly, and displays an analytic ability she says she acquired “under the brutal hazing of law school.”
She honed her skills with three years as a trial attorney for the Philadelphia law firm that represented that city's archdiocese, followed by another three years in the United States Catholic Conference's Office of General Counsel.
Oh yes, her background in entertainment has been helpful, as well. “I had a serious interest in singing and performing,” she says. “Even though I was never really good, I never had much stage fright.”
This absence of stage fright stands her in good stead when she's speaking on behalf of unborn babies.
“You have to know and state your arguments and do so in a relaxed fashion — and be quick on your feet.”
Simple.
Yet the 36-year-old mother of two, whose husband is an international trade analyst for the government, admits she worried about accepting the role as the Bishops' Director of Planning and Information for Pro-Life Activities — even though she felt she was being called to it in prayer. She had received her master's in theology from the Catholic University of America in 1989 and was in the middle of the doctoral program when the Knights of Columbus agreed to fund the position in 1990.
“I was worried about facing that kind of media exposure,” she admits, “saying the wrong thing, being subjected to that kind of scrutiny.”
An understandable concern considering the animosity toward pro-lifers, particularly from the media.
“I also was aware of the extent to which the media was shaping the debate, and I thought maybe I had some contribution to make in presenting the pro-life position persuasively. I was eager to test it out.”
By any measure, she's passed the test. Even the often-hostile media recognized her contribution when in 1994 she was named one of Time magazine's top 50 leaders in America under the age of 40.
She admits she was surprised by the award, and modestly insists she didn't feel she belonged on the list.
“My most specific reaction,” she adds, “was it's good for pro-life to be recognized as an important position.”
That may have been one of the movement's finer moments in an era that has brought much sorrow to those committed to protecting the unborn. Perhaps no one feels the frustration more acutely than Alvare. Yet her perspective helps her remain hopeful.
“St. Augustine talks about living in the City of God and the City of Man,” she says. “The kingdom is here and not yet here. There are signs of hope and despair.”
And Alvare knows them well.
“In some segments of society, there's an increasingly blasé, moral trivialization of abortion,” she says.
“That group reasons it's been [27] years since Roe v. Wade, there are 1.5 million babies aborted each year, so why don't you pro-life people give it up and go away.”
Then, of course, there's RU-486.
“They hope that by reducing abortion to pills, you'll make it a more trivial issue,” she says.
She's also fought the last four years against the most pro-abortion presidency in American history, a battle most heatedly contested over the partial-birth abortion ban.
“When people ask why the bishops are so pointedly upset about this,” Alvare says, “it's not merely that this is more infanticide than abortion, but it's the way we have been opposed, and the way support for partial-birth abortion has been done – with lies and in a way that casts its supporters as lovers of women. It's a threat to women's health; it's never necessary. And they knew that, and yet persisted.”
Faced with such galling contempt for the truth, she has learned to develop a thick skin.
“But even with years of activism and knowledge of what your opponents are capable of doing, there are still moments when even you can't believe it.”
For example, one year, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, when thousands of pro-lifers marched in Washington, President Clinton issued five pro-abortion executive orders, Alvare recalls.
“It was a slap in the face to the Americans there,” she recalls. Even still, she was unprepared for the theatrics the day he vetoed the partial-birth abortion ban.
“He portrayed himself and the other supporters as caring about women and their health,” she says. “It overwhelms the mind.”
Pregnant with her son, Julian, at the time, Alvare felt like she'd been kicked in the stomach. Yet she can she can also see hopeful signs.
“Over those same years, we've seen the abortion rate go down, we have Evangelium Vitae, and we've seen family values enter into the discussion.” People are beginning to realize that moral questions are intimately related to the country's well being.
“It bodes well for people to reflect that a country that endorses violence against its most defenseless is not on the right track.”
As for the future, Alvare will continue to promote the pro-life position with eloquence, maybe one day in the Halls of Congress. For now, she remains committed to her family and her work for the bishops.
