Pro-Life Runners Bring Pro-Life Message to Local Marathon

As the sun rose over the Willamette River early Sunday morning, 9,000 runners toed the starting line of the 52nd annual Portland Marathon. All were seeking to push their limits and put their training to the test.

Some had an even higher goal.

Among the thousands of racers who pounded Portland’s pavement on October 6, a small but particularly enthusiastic group were LIFE Runners: Members of an international organization of runners committed to representing the unborn by wearing a bold yet succinct pro-life message emblazoned on their race jerseys: “Remember the Unborn.”

Bernadette Costello, operations director for LIFE Runners, shared that she chose Oregon as the location for the group’s annual “National Race” for a specific reason.

In Oregon, abortion is legal on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy. And while many states have implemented pro-life laws following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Oregon has doubled down on its abortion radicalism.

This ongoing lack of legislative protections for the unborn, Costello said, put Oregon on the radar for the LIFE Runners.

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But the goal in coming to Portland wasn’t only to bring the pro-life message into a deeply “pro-choice” city and state: it was also to share fellowship with pro-life Oregonians seeking to build a culture of life in an ideologically hostile environment.

“Coming to this kind of city is encouraging for us,” said Costello, a former NICU respiratory therapist and seasoned pro-life sidewalk advocate. “God has all these little armies tucked away in all these places, and they may be small, but they’re mighty.”

Of course, no runner begins a race without preparation, and the LIFE Runners are no different. But for them, preparation on the afternoon before the marathon looked like spending an hour in peaceful, prayerful witness outside Portland’s notorious downtown abortion facility, the Lilith Clinic.

Dr. Pat Castle, the energetic Air Force veteran who founded LIFE Runners in 2008, led the “prayer huddle” outside the Southwest 10th Avenue abortion facility, sharing words of hope and encouragement with the LIFE Runners and supporters who carved time out of their Saturday to witness for life. Pro-life advocates who assembled to pray and speak up for the voiceless included Precious Children of Portland’s Peter Tran, as well as Marie Barzen, who leads 40 Days For Life–Beaverton and is the founder of a soon-to-be pro-life maternity home, St. Maria’s, which is currently in the building stage.

Following the outreach, the LIFE Runners attended Mass at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church, one of Portland’s historic Catholic churches. LIFE Runners National Chaplain Bishop Thomas Paprocki (who heads the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois and has run 24 marathons) said the Mass along with his assistant, Father Dominic Rankin (a sub-three hour Boston Marathon finisher).

At the race on Sunday morning, the team set up its pro-life banner near the start line, urging the thousands of runners and spectators to “Remember the Unborn.” And that witness continued as the runners hit the course, wearing their bright blue shirts featuring the LIFE Runners’ message, which includes a scripture reference to Jeremiah 1:5.

LIFE Runners who finished their races – some participating in the full marathon and others running the half or the 10K – met back up at the pro-life banner near the finish line to cheer on the other runners.

This joyful, peaceful witness to the truth about abortion and the humanity of the unborn is a core component of LIFE Runners’ mission and practical outreach.

“Virtually every, if not every person that’s walking in an abortion facility, is wounded by definition,” Dr. Castle said. Being present to offer real life-affirming resources to women and families – and even to share crucial data points – can open the way for hope and restoration.

Castle shared a story about a couple who arrived at an abortion facility where he was doing sidewalk advocacy. When he greeted them and asked them why they were getting an abortion, the man responded that they were “doing this to save our relationship.”

That’s when Castle shared that 90% of relationships end after abortion, a key statistic included on the group’s website and on cards that the LIFE Runners hand out to abortion-vulnerable people.

“So if you’re getting an abortion, and the reason is to save your relationship, this is not in line with your goal,” Castle said he told the man, continuing: “and he looked at her and said, ‘What do you want to do?’ And she said, ‘I don’t want to do this then.’”

“Sharing that truth,” Castle said, was enough to change the hearts and minds of the couple that day.

It’s stories like these that provide a hint that the persistent pro-abortion messaging about “choice” and “freedom” often doesn’t reflect the reality.

Costello said that when she sees women “show up at an abortion facility or come out, they just look so hopeless.”

“They look like it’s not something that they want,” she said. “And so I always want to reach out and give them help and love them because that’s what they’re hungry for, is true love. And so I just have a real compassion for women.” That compassion encompasses the unborn babies at risk of abortion as well as entire families, “because abortion breaks up families, too,” Costello said.

Costello urged pro-life advocates who may be discouraged by abortion radicalism in their community to maintain “joyful perseverance” and to stay grounded in their ultimate reason for being involved in the ministry. For the LIFE Runners, a Catholic group devoted to the pro-life cause, that foundation is in Jesus Christ and serving God’s people.

“Jesus said to all of us, proclaim the kingdom of God, heal the wounded, and deliver people from evil,” Castle said. “And so here we are. Out of the command from our Lord in obedience.”

And for Costello, that foundation provides hope even when the way forward may seem murky.

“Even though we might be in a culture where we can’t see that we’re making a difference, we need to keep that hope that the Lord is working,” she said.

Dr. Pat Castle founded LIFE Runners in 2008. That same year, a team of 12 LIFE Runners took part in their first annual “National Race” when they ran the Chicago Marathon to raise money to purchase ultrasound equipment.

In subsequent years, according to the organization’s website, the group has grown to include hundreds of chapters nationwide, launching an annual cross-national relay race in 2013 and going international by kicking off an 82-mile relay in Italy and becoming the first registered Christian team to finish the Jerusalem Marathon in Israel in 2019. Today, LIFE Runners reports having more than 24,000 members in 3,500 cities across 47 nations.

LifeNews Note: Ashley Sadler is Communications Director for Oregon Right to Life