Donations can be made to Community Foundation of Acadiana Memo: Acadiana Pro-Life Fund. Contact Krystal Romero at the contact above for more information.

“105 Lafayette Physicians sign a resolution against abortion in a full page ad in the ‘Daily Advertiser’ February 9, 1973

Shortly after the Supreme Court’s infamous January 22, 1973 decision wiping out all the fifty states’ laws against abortion in one fell swoop, this denouncement ad ran in the ‘Advertiser’. It strengthened the resolve of leading Lafayette citizens to form the Acadiana Right to Life Committee. These visionaries were: Dr. William I. Smith, Dr. Zerben Bienvenu, Mr. Wayne Frederic, Mr. Dup Lastrapes, Rep. Mike Thompson, Mr. John Coleman, and Mr. Weston Broussard.

After much homework, the first official meeting was held at the courthouse in January of 1974, with 200 new members in attendance. The main goal was as it is today, education and passage of a Human Life Amendment. A year later, LIFELINE, a crisis intervention service run by fifteen lady volunteers headed by Mrs. Annette Domingue was begun. This 24 hour hotline provided immediate help to women n distress and alternatives to abortion (it’s still operating). Through the Acadiana Right to Life Speaker’s Bureau, which also included Mr. Bob Theriot and Dr. Wilton Bergeron, hundreds of students, civic organizations, congregations and legislators become educated on the abortion issue by means of lectures, slide presentations, and films. Soon after, pro-life chapters sprung up in Vermillion, St. Landry, Evangeline, Calcasieu, and Acadia parishes to help make Louisiana the most pro-life state in the union.