St. Michael student club learns value of life while praying daily to stop abortion
Janine Pawelski, religious education director at St. Michael, started the club six years ago, when her own son attended the school.
Pawelski said parents were initially uneasy about the idea.
“When I first started this club, parents were skeptical of talking about abortion in a grade school,” she said.
“It’s not a sex ed class by any means, and that’s the first thing people think when you bring up abortion. We don’t talk about the reproductive system. We start with (the idea that) life is precious; that’s what we want to promote.”
The Pro-Life Club accepts students in sixth through eighth grade and currently has between 60 and 80 members. The group begins in September and continues to pray throughout most of the school year. During the initial meeting, students are given special prayer cards and are encouraged to write down the name of the unborn child for whom they are praying.
“We pray each day — I ask them to keep their prayer cards near their bed or somewhere that they’ll remember to pray each day for that unborn baby,” Pawelski said.
The club gathers once a month during a recess period to hold a group prayer service. The group reflects on the baby’s development in the corresponding month, and the students are educated about the various stages of human development, such as the development of a heartbeat after one month.
“The educational aspect is that we go through the posters and we talk about the pre-born baby at each stage of life going through all nine months,” Pawelski said.
In addition to educating students, the group supports one another during the monthly meetings, and the members push one another to continue their prayer.
“We encourage each other to pray,” Pawelski said. “I tell them, ‘If you’ve forgotten, don’t worry, don’t despair, just pray.’”
The students take their roles very seriously.
“It’s different from other clubs because it is a world problem,” said Abbey Reppen, a seventh-grader in the club.
“Every day we pray, and in nine months we have a birthday party,” added eighth-grader Alexis Osmond, referring to the group’s final meeting in which the club celebrates the lives of the children for whom they prayed with pizza and birthday cake. The club also hosts a special prayer meeting on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the unborn.
The St. Michael Pro-Life Club is proactive against abortion in other ways as well. The club hosts a nine-hour relay walk that is also symbolic of a child’s time spent in the womb. Students walk the perimeter of the school to raise awareness of abortion in the school’s surrounding community.
The club also takes a particularly active role in the parish’s “Celebrate Life” week each year, beginning on Mother’s Day. Special prayers are announced over the school’s P.A. system, and classrooms participate in special activities to promote the blessed nature of life. Members of the Pro-Life Club also design posters to be displayed in and around the school to promote awareness. Baby items such as clothing are also collected throughout the week, which are organized by the club and taken to the local Right to Life Wee Care donation facility by parent volunteers at the end of the week.
It is also during this week that the group holds its ninth meeting of the year — the unborn child’s birthday party.
Many of the graduating students intend to carry what they’ve learned in Pro-Life Club into high school.
“Even if my school doesn’t have a pro-life club, I would start one,” said Anna Ciesinski, an eighth-grader. “Some people might be for it, some people might be against it, but everyone should know about it.”
Nicholas Pizana is a freelance writer from Lathrup Village.
