By A.M. Kelley
Catholic Herald

Pro-life group formed on university campus in Superior

SUPERIOR -- Jennifer Soderbeck said her business is to change hearts and minds.

To assist her work, Wisconsin Right to Life recently gave the 20-year-old $1,500. The grant enabled Soderbeck to start a Right to Life organization on the University of Wisconsin-Superior campus.

"It's not start-up money," she said. "It's to help me live and get by so I can use my time to run the group."

An elementary education junior, she never imagined herself an activist and only a few years ago knew virtually nothing about the pro-life movement. Nonetheless, today's she the president of the UW-Superior Students for Life with more than 30 new members on the rolls.

Her parents, Pat and Dale Soderbeck, are both teachers and live in Webster. Soderbeck graduated from high school in Grantsburg and then attended a community college in White Bear Lake, Minn. Her women's studies course there offered extra credit to students who attended community events relevant to its subject matter. That's how she found herself at a pro-life rally in St. Paul.

"I didn't know much about abortion then," she said. "I didn't know how many were being done. And afterward I wasn't on fire about it."

It wasn't for another year or so that she started paying attention to abortion debates.

"After I became a Christian things changed," she said.

She moved north and enrolled at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Wanting to become more involved in politics, she searched online for ways to help during the 2004 presidential campaign and found the name of Jim Tuttle, a local pro-life activist. That same week, while shopping around for a church to join, she visited Mount of Olives Baptist Church in Duluth. As luck would have it, Tuttle and his family are members of that church and Soderbeck's interest in pro-life activities moved further along.

She located a Right to Life group on the Duluth campus but when she transferred to the UWS last spring she missed those contacts.

"Wake up," she told herself. "There's no group here."

She wanted to organize one, but how? From a friend of a friend, she heard about WRTL and its grant program.

On the application she was asked her views and answered simply.

"It's wrong to kill people," she said. "The bottom line is, abortion isn't right."

She was awarded a grant.

According to WRTL Executive Director Barbara Lyons, similar grants have been given to four other college students in the state this year and to two students last year from the organization's education fund.

The students are expected to organize, recruit members, host campus events and raise funds for supplies and literature.

Soderbeck's work is well underway. With the help of a few other students, she wrote a constitution, filed the appropriate paperwork, and last week was granted official group status on campus. Now the UW-Superior Students for Life can apply for campus funds next year which are set aside for student organizations.

The group has already presented one major campus event. In October, along with Superior Teens for Life and WRTL, it co-sponsored the visit of speaker Bobby Schindler whose sister Terri Schiavo's much publicized death occurred in March after the removal of feeding tubes.

Soderbeck is now at work on a project to educate and train students on how to debate the abortion issue. She's also learning how to become a fundraiser. It's all new territory but she's energized and seems sure of her footing.

"God's led me, one step at a time," she said.

Editor's note: Soderbeck can be reached at jsoderbeck@hotmail. com. The group meets at 5 p.m. every Monday in the Student Center on campus.

More information about Wisconsin Right to Life is available on its Web site www.wrtl.org or by calling 877-855-5007.

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© Superior Catholic Herald, 2005