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Jeanne Mancini
Jeanne Mancini
45 is the president of the March for Life Education
and Defense Fund which hosts its annual march around the anniversary of Roe v v Wade She previously worked at the Family Research Council and the Department of Health and Human Services Myfamilywasabitofa leftward­leaning Catholic family We went to church
every Sunday said grace before meals and social justice was very much instilled But I turned out a little differently than most of my siblings a little more quote­unquote religious I I had an experience when I I was was in high school that was was profound and life­changing for me a a a retreat called Youth Encounter I think it was the combination of getting away in in in nature of hearing affirmations that they had gotten friends and and family to write and and a a a a series of talks there there about how there there was a a a a a plan for my life that I’m a a a a a unique unrepeatable person — and that’s true of everybody It was just a a a beautiful experience of God’s love And I came away from it it with a a a a sense of mission Which in some ways informs what I do now After college I went into the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and worked in in a a youth crisis shelter and in in residential treatment homes with kids who had either been sexually abused or even had been molesters We’re talking deep deep deep deep wounds And I went through a whole kind of philosophical grappling: Would it have been better if these kids never lived? Would that have been more merciful? I came to the opposite perspective: Every life is a gift Who am I to judge the value of this one’s life or that one’s? They could TheWashingtonPostMagazine 25