NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) — Pro-life champion Chris Slattery, founder of a network of pregnancy help centers in New York and credited with saving tens of thousands of lives while training and inspiring multiple generations of pro-life activists, has died after a long struggle with cancer. He was 68.
Slattery walked away from a New York City advertising company to answer a higher calling to which he committed himself for four decades.
Slattery’s Pro Life Interns website notes that his network of pregnancy centers has “helped save over 43,000+ children from abortion since 1985, and have counseled over 150,000 women.”
“Enough to fill his beloved Yankee Stadium,” said CompassCare CEO Rev. Jim Harden. “In a recent interview, Chris observed, ‘I have a unique talent of saving children from being killed.’”
“What was the belief driving his undying passion to spare both women and babies from abortion in his words?” said Harden. “The most precious beings in the world are human beings, made in [God’s] likeness and image, with an eternal soul.”
“What he has done with his pregnancy help centers in New York was ahead of his time,” noted Citizens for a Pro-life Society’s Monica Miller in an interview last year. “He foresaw that there’s a need to reach out and help the moms. It’s not only about the babies, it’s about the mothers.”
“He’s an absolute hero,” exclaimed Miller.
“Chris has been an all-star for us,” said Michael New, professor at the Catholic University of America. “He’s done great work in a very tough city. New York City is the abortion capital of the world, but expectant Mother Care has helped thousands of women save thousands of lives.”
Abortion opponent Lauren Handy, now in jail for blocking access to a Washington, D.C., abortion facility, said Slattery has meant everything to the pro-life movement. “He was one of the first to institutionalize the concept of a sidewalk counseling ministry.”
Handy marveled at the number of babies that Slattery is credited with saving and said, “I wouldn’t be a sidewalk counselor without his guidance.”
Rev. Harden’s statement continues:
Chris began blazing the trail to save lives in the American abortion capital, New York City, in 1979, shortly after the legalization of abortion. Using his advertising expertise acquired at Boston College, Chris founded the pregnancy center network, Expectant Mother Care, later known as EMC Frontline with 14 locations throughout the five-borough area.
Chris’ pioneering spirit gave rise to the use of ultrasound scans in 1986, 20 years before most pregnancy centers ever considered using the technology. He even took imagining to the streets with mobile medical vans, now so popular nationwide
Chris is quick to point out, ‘It’s not just about saving the babies. It’s saving the mother’s soul, helping her to fulfill her mission in life.”’
In his later years, Chris became enemy number one for the abortion empire. Since the early 2000s, I personally witnessed Chris’ fighting spirit as he and I took the fight to the abortion industry’s front gate. From Eliot Spitzer to Letitia James, Andrew Cuomo to Kathy Hochul, none of the pro-abortion Goliaths in NYC were able to stand before Chris Slattery, the pro-life David. That’s Chris. Lesser men might have thrown in the towel…
Chris had an Arthurian vision for the world, America, and New York City. A vision in which a woman doesn’t feel like she has to choose between her life and her baby’s life.
According to an Aleteia report, after having recently reverted to the Catholic faith, Slattery experienced a transformative moment in the early 1980s when he spotted a young Catholic woman he knew standing in front of a skyscraper, praying and attempting to talk to women headed to the abortion center inside.
He joined her and convinced a 15-year-old not to abort her child.
“Six months later I was holding that 15-year-old’s baby in my arms in their apartment in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn,” Slattery told Aleteia. “I was new to this. I just looked into this baby’s eyes and thought, ‘Oh my God, I just saved a baby. I saved this baby’s life.’ It was absolutely transformational. I said, ‘My God, you can use me to save babies. How can I do this?’”
Before his death, Slattery entrusted his organization, Expectant Mother Care Front Line Pregnancy Centers to the care of Rev. Harden’s CompassCare Pregnancy Services.
“It is humbling and a privilege that Chris placed his pro-life mantle in NYC on me. CompassCare is joining forces with the EMC team to continue Chris’ lifesaving vision,” said Harden.
Harden praised Slattery:
I am convinced that one day all God’s people will look upon this labor of love and see the work of God. But more importantly, when time is rolled up like a scroll, I believe God Himself will survey the lifesaving work He began with Chris and see hundreds of thousands of lives saved and lived to His glory… and smile – God’s Magnum Opus.