By Katie Yoder
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 19, 2021 / 13:00 pm
Leah Darrow is calling on society to recognize the beauty of children and to challenge the notion that abortion is necessary for women’s sucess.
Darrow rose to fame as a contestant on America’s Next Top Model. But at the height of her modeling career, she saw a vision from God that forever changed her life. She exited the industry and returned to her Catholic faith. Today, she juggles her time between caring for her six children and serving as a Catholic speaker and advocate for the unborn.
As a mother, she said, she embraces the pro-life position on a personal level.
“I can understand there being a fear of going into motherhood and all the concerns we have because it is such a grand vocation – it's a beautiful vocation,” she told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly June 10. “But my babies have not kept me from my hopes and my dreams or aspirations.”
While some celebrities and, more recently, Texas high school valedictorian Paxton Smith, claim that abortion is necessary for women to succceed, Leah stressed that her children make her – and the world – better.
“They've helped me dig a new path that's offered more clarity of what God has called me to be,” she explained. “My babies are a part of my dreams, they're a part of my hopes and my aspirations. And the world is truly better for it, because of my children and also for who I am because of my children in the world.”
Even if the world doesn’t appreciate it, motherhood is a gift.
“Our culture has slowly and systematically convinced us that motherhood is the enemy. And motherhood is not a dream and it's not an aspiration and it's not a hope that young women should have,” she said. “That is a lie.”
According to Darrow, motherhood “is not a killer of dreams.” She pointed to Mary as an example.
“We know that Our Blessed Mother is a mother of every hope and every dream and every aspiration that should be at the foundation of our heart,” she said of Christ’s Mother. “The role of motherhood really needs to be redeemed in our world.”
Darrow’s comments came in response to Smith, whose valedictorian speech when viral earlier this month after she went off-script to speak about abortion and her state’s recent heartbeat legislation.
Smith told her class, “I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail, I am terrified that if I am raped, then my hopes and aspirations and dreams and efforts for my future will no longer matter.”
But Leah stressed hope in the midst of Smith's fear.
“Now more than ever, mothers have more support and resources around them if and when they are ever faced with an unplanned pregnancy,” Leah said. Those resources include pregnancy centers, which offer pregnant women and new moms free help in the form of health care, clothing, educational classes, and housing.
Pro-lifers must also challenge the lie that abortion is necessary for women, Darrow said.
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“That's what we have to be at root at and to root out,” she emphasized, “because babies do not kill dreams, only abortion does that.”
