By Holly Gatling, SCCL Executive Director
July has been a difficult month for the pro-life community.
On July 1, Jeanne Head, R.N., died at the age of 94. She had served for many years as Vice President for International Affairs for the National Right to Life Committee—and for 33 years, she had been my mentor. We served together on the NRLC Board of Directors.
By night, Jeanne worked as a labor-and-delivery nurse in New York. By day, she carried the pro-life message onto the international stage. She was also my boss during the two summers I worked at the United Nations under her storied leadership. Although her health had been declining, her death was still difficult to bear.
Then, on July 11, South Carolina’s senior United States senator, Lindsey Graham, died unexpectedly at the age of 71. He was one of the most influential and steadfast champions of unborn children ever to serve in the United States Congress.
For me, the two losses became forever intertwined.
At 4 a.m. on Sunday, July 12, I was riding a shuttle from Columbia to Charlotte Douglas International Airport, where I would board a flight to Omaha, Nebraska, for Jeanne’s funeral. As the shuttle sped quietly north on I-77, I checked my text messages and learned that Senator Graham had died only a few hours earlier at his residence in Washington, D.C.
It is difficult to put into words the sorrow and grief I felt in that moment. I mean, just one day earlier Senator Graham had been meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Even now, on July 17, as I write this, the shock has barely begun to subside.
President Donald Trump ordered American flags at public buildings and grounds across the nation to be flown at half-staff in Senator Graham’s honor. On Monday, July 13, as I made my way to the funeral Mass for my pro-life mentor, Jeanne Head, at Saint Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha, I felt an odd sense of pride as I passed the flags lowered in remembrance of my stalwart pro-life senator—a man who always called me by name and always made time for a photograph.
The flags at half-staff seemed to bring the two losses together: one honoring a senator who used his public office to defend unborn children and the other marking my journey to say goodbye to a mentor who devoted her extraordinary life to the same cause.
Both served the pro-life movement with courage and distinction. Both leave behind remarkable legacies. And both will be deeply missed.
Much of the reporting on Senator Graham’s legacy focused on his fame in foreign policy matters. Here is a tribute to Senator Graham’s pro-life legacy.
As for Jeanne Head, R.N., here is the most tender and precise remembrance of the forceful and compassionate woman whose leadership influenced the pro-life movement – and my own life – for more than three decades.
May the souls of the faithful departed in the mercy of God rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them.
###