At 80, pro-life advocate steps down from role but not from cause—‘It’s too important’

Steve Martin of St. Monica Parish in Indianapolis prays in front of a Planned Parenthood facility within his parish’s boundaries on Oct. 22—five days before turning 80 and stepping down as St. Monica’s pro-life committee chair after 49 years. (Photo by Natalie Hoefer)

By Natalie Hoefer

It’s a chilly but sunny morning as Steve Martin slowly paces the sidewalk in front of a Planned Parenthood facility on the northwest side of Indianapolis on Oct. 22.

He prays the rosary in silence as he walks, the beads gently tapping his “Pray to End Abortion” sign.

It’s not Martin’s first time to trace this path. He has been coming here to pray since 2005, when Planned Parenthood announced the construction of the abortion center—within the boundaries of his parish, St. Monica in Indianapolis.

He was head of the parish’s pro-life committee then. He still is on this October morning—but not for long. In five days, on Martin’s 80th birthday, he would pass over the reins after 49 years.

There was a time when a St. Monica pastor asked him to step down from the role.

“I told him if he could find someone else to take it over, I’d gladly give it up,” Martin recalls. “He never did.”

So why step down now?

For one, there is a “young, gung-ho, pro-life activist” excited to take the reins, he says. “And 80 just sounded like a good number.”

In the nearly half century Martin spearheaded the St. Monica group, he was also active with other pro-life efforts in Indianapolis.

But there was a time—a very short time—when Martin was pro-choice.

Pro-life people ‘woke me up’

Martin grew up “in a very Catholic family” just north of the Bronx borough of New York City.

He was a young, married father working as a computer programmer for IBM in White Plains, N.Y., when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion with its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

“I thought it was a good thing,” Martin admits. His mindset was that “the Catholic Church has to wake up and come into the modern age.”

After listening to a pro-life speaker, he began to change his mind.

“She always had the right argument, and the pro-choice speaker just wanted to throw the child away because a woman didn’t want it,” Martin recalls. “I thought, ‘Well, that’s not a good argument.’

“And the more I listened, no one on the pro-choice side made sense. They seemed so utilitarian: ‘If having a kid works for you, do it. If not, get rid of it.’

“The pro-life speakers always sounded better—more loving, more reasonable—to me. It was the pro-life argument conveyed by articulate pro-life people that woke me up.”

Within six months of the Roe v. Wade decision, Martin was full-on pro-life.

A job transfer took him and his family to Indianapolis a few years later. He moved in November 1975 to look for a home, and his wife Virginia (“Ginny”) and their three children joined him in February 1976. (He notes that their “fourth child—twin girls,” were born later.)

The family settled within St. Monica Parish. Martin, wasting no time getting involved, began teaching eighth-grade faith formation classes.

And when he was asked that same year to chair the parish’s pro-life committee, he said yes.

A ‘boundless’ passion

Martin’s pro-life efforts quickly reached beyond St. Monica. The journey started in 1976 when he took his faith formation students to hear a pro-life speaker, and a sign-up sheet was passed around for a newly formed speakers bureau.

“I love being in front of people, and I love to talk,” says Martin, who acted in plays in high school and college.

Nevertheless, his first speaking engagement “was a disaster,” he says. “I remember getting home and telling my wife, ‘I’m never doing that again!’ ”

But he did—for 40 more years, even serving as head of what is now known as the Right to Life of Indianapolis Speakers Bureau for a time. One of his more memorable talks was an appearance on a local talk show to support the pro-life side in a situation in Bloomington that drew national attention in 1982, now known as the “Baby Doe” case.

Martin’s involvement in the pro-life movement in Indianapolis continued to grow.

Whether it’s the former Committee for the Preservation of Life and the Right to Life of Indianapolis organization it later became, Great Lakes Gabriel Project, Life Chain, Birthline, the Indiana March for Life or praying at abortion centers throughout the city—if it was in Indianapolis and had to do with protecting the lives of the unborn and helping mothers in need, Martin has been involved with leading, volunteering or supporting the effort.

One effort he especially embraced was 40 Days for Life. Started in Texas in 2004, the project involves 40-day spring and fall campaigns of peaceful prayer in front of abortion centers.

When 40 Days for Life went national in 2007, Martin spearheaded St. Monica’s involvement. After all, the site for the Indianapolis campaigns was the state’s largest abortion center—the Planned Parenthood facility in the parish’s boundaries.

He even organized the Indianapolis campaigns in general for several years. When Sheryl Dye took on that role after Martin, she says he left “big shoes to fill.”

On St. Monica’s assigned days during the campaigns, Martin is “frequently out there himself if a slot isn’t filled,” says Dye, coordinator for the Indianapolis North affiliate of Sidewalk Advocates for Life. “His passion for that project is boundless.”

Eric Slaughter agrees.

Like Martin, the member of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish in Indianapolis is a highly involved pro-life advocate and leader in his parish, the archdiocese and other organizations and ministries.

“I always admired [Martin’s] commitment to share the truth about life and the duty we have to not only protect [the unborn] but to help the mothers in need of assistance,” says Slaughter.

He sees Martin “at just about every pro-life event, fundraiser and prayer vigil.” And Slaughter says whenever he needs help with a pro-life event, he can “count on Steve” to pitch in.

“Just knowing that Steve is there continuing to serve the Lord has inspired me to keep going.”

‘The right message’ will move people

Martin has been honored for his pro-life work. He received President George H. W. Bush’s Daily Point of Light Award in 1992 for his defense of the unborn and the archdiocese’s Archbishop Edward T. O’Meara Pro-Life Award in 2003. He and Ginny were awarded the Charles E. Stimming Sr. Pro-Life Award from Right to Life of Indianapolis in 1988.

But in the end, says Martin, “I don’t want an award. I want to go to heaven and hear God say, ‘Steve you worked to save lives.’ ”

It’s work where “you plant seeds but don’t often see results,” he admits.

But there are a few times he was blessed to see the fruit of his labor.

Like the waitress Martin met at a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee shop in Chicago while he was on business, who decided not to have an abortion after reading material he gave her.

Or the woman he found sobbing in her car at St. Monica after watching a film he showed of an actual abortion.

“She said she had no idea that’s what abortion looks like,” says Martin. “She was converted to the pro-life cause for the rest of her life.”

And there was the late Clara Green, a local pro-life advocate who received the same three awards as Martin.

“She told me she got so involved [in the pro-life movement] because of a talk I gave at St. Monica,” Martin says. “If you get the right message out, people will be moved.”

‘I can’t go away—it’s too important’

Martin retired from his job at 69. But his work to defend the unborn and help moms in need continued, even after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade.

“When Roe was overturned, I was in tears,” he says. Pro-life advocates “were just happy, happy, happy. But we knew our work wasn’t over, because the fight was now state by state.”

Tears well in his eyes as he considers the number of abortions happening in the U.S. every day—2,900, according to a June report by the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute.

Whether it’s 2,900 or one, as long as abortion exists, Martin will continue his pro-life efforts at 80 and beyond, even if no longer as St. Monica’s pro-life committee chair.

“I can’t go away—it’s too important,” he says. “Hearts have to change. Abortion has to become unthinkable.”

And so his work continues. As Martin paces and prays in silent witness in front of the Planned Parenthood facility on Oct. 22, his head turns as a car horn blares. The driver shouts some obscenities, adding a hand gesture for good measure.

Unfazed, Martin laughs as the car speeds away.

“Well, that’s one negative honk,” he says with a grin. “We’ll see if I can tally up more positive than negative ones before I’m done.”

Then he bows his head again and continues to walk and pray. †