Before the Supreme Court released its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization June 24, Mary Ann Kuharski, director of Prolife Across America, said she didn’t think it would make any difference. She would continue doing what she has been for decades: helping babies, helping moms and families in need of pregnancy assistance or post-abortion help.

But when she heard the news on her car radio that morning as she pulled into a parking lot, she broke down and sobbed.

“It was a lifetime of work for my husband and I,” Kuharski said, work that started in 1970. Hearing that a number of states “will return to protecting both the babies and the mothers is a gift from God,” she said.

The decision June 24 overturned the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade, legalized abortion in all 50 states, and placed abortion laws into the hands of state and federal lawmakers. An early draft opinion of Dobbs had been leaked and made public in May, indicating a possible overturn of the nearly 50-year-old Roe.

Under its current laws, Minnesota is expected to continue offering abortions, and Kuharski said the number of abortions offered in the state might increase as pregnant women travel from states that ban it. But the time needed to travel to Minnesota can give women the chance to think through their decision and possibly change their mind, she said.

And they might run across a Prolife Across America billboard, radio, print or online ad bringing positive messages and offering information and alternatives to abortion. Co-founded in 1989 by Kuharski, her husband, John, and another couple, the nonprofit seeks to create ads that offer an “atmosphere of life” in a “culture of death.”

Kuharski, a member of St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony, recalled a recent telephone call to her organization from a young woman who said she agreed to drive her friend more than three hours to have a scheduled abortion, but they saw a Prolife Across America billboard on the way, one with a message about a baby’s heartbeat. It promoted conversation during the drive and by the time they reached their destination, they called Prolife Across America instead.

Forty percent of Prolife Across America hotline callers are men, Kuharski said. “They really want to know what they can do to help the mother,” she said, and the baby, too. She recalled a Planned Parenthood statistic that 90% of women who get an abortion said they did it to please someone else or protect someone else.

Kuharski also is encouraged by the number of converts to the pro-life movement, including people who work for her organization and others who donate and “pray for us,” she said. She recalled a recent trip to Mississippi where she gave a presentation. Kuharski’s escort that day was a female physician who used to provide abortions, she said, someone Kuharski knew of.

“The conversion stories are amazing,” she said, “and it’s why I love being Catholic, because we believe in God’s mercy and God’s forgiveness, and we welcome converts.”

She said she considers the pro-life movement “the most ecumenical one” as it welcomes people of different faiths, races and backgrounds who share one thing in common: the sacredness of human life, from conception to natural death.