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Cassy Cooke
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Human Interest·By Angeline Tan
From classroom debates to full time advocacy, Catherine shares the stories that change hearts
For Catherine Mockler, the call to join the pro-life cause began long before it became her work at the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC). It began in a secondary-school classroom, took shape through the example of a father prepared to withstand public criticism, and became personal when she met a man who had survived an attempted abortion.
Catherine Mockler was raised pro-life, but her convictions grew when she had a personal experience with a man who had nearly been aborted.
She began advocating for preborn babies when she was still in school. She sought to defend the lives of the most vulernable, including her brother, who has Down syndrome.
In standing up for preborn babies, she has faced division and lost friends. Despite wanting to quit at times, she persevered.
Mockler now works for a pro-life organization sharing stories ranging from abortion, human dignity, prostitution, family life, bioethics, and end-of-life concerns.
Today, Mockler hosts and creates content for SPUC’s SPUCTV. Through interviews, storytelling, and public advocacy, she argues that unborn children, women facing crisis pregnancies, people with disabilities, and older people all deserve protection. SPUC frames its mission as one of defending the right to life “from conception to natural death,” standing in opposition to abortion and assisted suicide.
Yet apart from the campaigns and the camera is a story impacted by conviction, loss, faith, and perseverance.
Mockler's earliest memory of defending preborn babies takes her back to school.
“I was always pro-life as a Catholic,” she told Live Action News. “My earliest memory was in secondary school, being one of two girls to stand up during a debate for the pro-life position in a classroom full of girls.”
Admittedly, Mockler's pro-life stance was not an easy position to hold. Yet she felt she had no choice but to speak out for preborn lives. Besides, Mockler had a personal reason for understanding vulnerability: her brother has Down syndrome.
“I knew I needed to defend those who were deemed more vulnerable in the womb,” she acknowledged.
At that point, nonetheless, Mockler did not fully realize how far the abortion debate would go.
“I did not understand at the time that certain people are obsessed with legalizing abortion up to birth,” she said.
During her college years, abortion ceased to be an abstract moral question and became deeply personal for her.
One night, as Mockler prayed about a young man she liked, something happened that, she said, altered the course of her life.
“The Lord showed me in a vision a baby crying with an injection going into it, and I heard an audible voice of a man crying in the middle of the night,” she recalled.
The next day, Mockler told her friends what she had seen, and they wondered whether it might be connected to abortion.
A few days later, as she and the young man she was interested in walked together to an event, he began to confide in her.
“He told me that doctors tried to abort him, but his mother stood her ground,” she disclosed.
For Mockler, the encounter revealed something far deeper than a political argument.
“It appeared that it still deeply affected his sense of worth as a man and wasn’t open to love,” she stated. “This was the first encounter I had on the spiritual significance of abortion.”
Mockler had always believed that speaking up for preborn children was right, but her convictions deepened during a graduate program in Dublin. There, she lived with a Christian friend who led a monthly prayer group for the preborn.
“Every time I joined, the more scales would fall from my eyes,” she divulged.
Roughly three months into the program, Mockler returned home from work, opened her Bible, and felt overcome by emotion.
“I felt a burden and wept over the loss of the unborn babies,” she explained.
She said that the Holy Spirit gave her a contention: “One day you will weep even more when you hold babies of your own over the loss of lives.”
Furthermore, the words of Psalm 127:3 became a recurring theme in her pro-life convictions: “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.”
Speaking publicly as pro-life came at a cost for Mockler.
“Yes, I had certain family members not be happy, and friends and neighbors unfriend me on Facebook or unfollow me on Instagram,” she said. Yet she refused to let these setbacks prompt her to withdraw her views.
“Anyone who knows me knows I am quite strong, by God’s grace,” she declared. “I also grew up in a big family, so you learn to develop thick skin with siblings.” For Mockler, these losses were small compared with what she believed was at stake.
“It doesn’t bother me, as it’s a small price to pay to defend lives,” she said.
Moreover, Mockler has found new friends among the pro-life community.
“I have met far more wonderful people since then in the pro-life movement who have been great friends and like family to me,” she said. “God can restore what we lost.”
Strikingly, Mockler said that it was her own father who shaped her pro-life convictions the most.
“He raised me to defend the vulnerable,” she said. During Ireland’s abortion referendum, her father put up signs for the preborn in public notwithstanding resistance.
“He has instilled in me the faith and confidence to do this work, and his prayers have protected me,” she told Live Action News.
Nonetheless, Mockler is cognizant that not everyone has that kind of support.
“A lot of women didn’t have a father to offer them the same,” she said. “I now am trying to help women in this area.”
Mockler's Catholic faith remains indispensable in her understanding of human dignity, particularly through Pope John Paul II’s "Theology of the Body."
“It has been such a tremendous resource in my faith journey to help unpack the understanding of the gift of our bodies,” she said. “When I understand my own worth and dignity, it gets easier to protect other people’s worth and dignity.”
Pro-life work has not been easy for Mockler; in fact, she came very close to quitting at the outset.
“As soon as I started, I wanted to quit,” she said, laughing. “It was hard.”
In addition, Mockler mentioned spiritual discouragement, division, and the weight of confronting painful realities.
“The enemy can come in to discourage you and cause disunity,” she said. “But I look back at that time, and I didn’t understand how to protect myself spiritually or know about boundaries, rest, and the importance of physical exercise to help handle what I have to deal with."
Mockler has since learned that perseverance demands more than passion.
“You need boundaries. You need rest. You need to look after your body and your soul,” she explained.
Mockler's path to SPUC started with a significant leap of faith. During COVID-19, while she was living in Dublin and praying about her career, one verse kept coming back to her: Psalm 127:3.
“I felt the Lord prompt me to leave my family and friends and move to Belfast in January with five bags and no job,” she said. Eventually, she did make the move.
“I said, ‘OK Lord, if it’s Your will, it’s Your bill,’” she recounted.
Just three weeks later, Mockler went to a prayer meeting. Though job offers were starting to arrive, she could not shake a sense of unease about them.
Then someone told her, “You slayed giants. Now God is sending you a team this week to slay even more giants with.”
Only days afterwards, a Facebook message arrived about a position with SPUC. She went through three rounds of interviews before being hired. When she was subsequently invited to relocate to Scotland, she once more turned to prayer for guidance.
“I kept hearing, ‘Jesus holds these babies close to His heart,’” she said.
Mockler's SPUC career began in video content creation and she came to understand how to treat other people’s stories with sensitivity.
“How to be a good listener with guests who open up on our show,” she said. “It’s a privilege to steward their hearts this way on the platform we have.”
Importantly, Mockler conceded mistakes made along the way, but she values what they taught her.
“I made plenty of mistakes, and I am grateful for the lessons learned and the team we now have at SPUCTV,” she said. “When we have a spirit of excellence, that in itself is a form of evangelism.”
People who think the pro-life movement is focused solely on abortion may be taken aback by the wider message SPUC promotes.
“At SPUC, we advocate for all lives to be protected because they are just as precious,” she said. She shone a spotlight on people with disabilities and chronic illness, along with elderly people, who are vulnreable to euthanasia and assisted suicide.
“There are certain politicians determined on pushing euthanasia and assisted suicide on these vulnerable people,” she stated. “We defend life in those cases too.”
Notably, SPUCTV’s Heart to Heart offers in-depth interviews with guests who explore topics such as abortion, human dignity, prostitution, family life, bioethics, and end-of-life concerns. Of all the interviews Mockler has hosted, one stands out as particularly moving: her talk with Helena Croft, the founder of Streetlight UK, an organization that supports women involved in prostitution.
“Interviewing Helena Croft, who works entering the brothels to help women in prostitution, and how some of them have had abortions, really opened my eyes,” she said. What impressed Mockler most was Helena’s courage. “I was struck by Helena’s bravery too. It is something I would love to explore more.”
For Mockler, taking part in events like the March for Life goes beyond a symbolic gesture. She sees it as a responsibility.
“It means not being bullied into silence by the pro-abortion movement,” she said. She holds that preborn children, more than anyone, must rely on other people to be their voice.
“The unborn babies need our hope,” she said. “Unlike other advocacy groups, the unborn can’t defend themselves or call for help. When we show up publicly to be a voice for them, others’ minds and hearts can be softened towards the unborn."
If Mockler could speak directly to a woman experiencing an unexpected pregnancy, her message would be simple: “You are not alone. There are lots of people who have your back and want to support you, who can offer resources to you.”
Significantly, Mockler hopes women would realize that courage is possible, even when the future feels daunting.
“Even though it’s hard, you can do hard things,” she reaffirmed. “Your and your baby’s lives matter.”
For Mockler, such messaging is the crux of the pro-life movement — not judgment — but protection, practical help, and hope for both mother and child.
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
Cassy Cooke
·
Human Interest
Isabella Childs
·
Human Interest
Cassy Cooke
·
Human Interest
Angeline Tan
·
Human Interest
Right to Life UK
·
Human Interest
Lisa Bast
·
International
Angeline Tan
·
Analysis
Angeline Tan
·Human Interest
Angeline Tan
·
Activism
Angeline Tan
·
International
Angeline Tan
·Human Interest·By Angeline Tan
From classroom debates to full time advocacy, Catherine shares the stories that change hearts
For Catherine Mockler, the call to join the pro-life cause began long before it became her work at the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC). It began in a secondary-school classroom, took shape through the example of a father prepared to withstand public criticism, and became personal when she met a man who had survived an attempted abortion.
Catherine Mockler was raised pro-life, but her convictions grew when she had a personal experience with a man who had nearly been aborted.
She began advocating for preborn babies when she was still in school. She sought to defend the lives of the most vulernable, including her brother, who has Down syndrome.
In standing up for preborn babies, she has faced division and lost friends. Despite wanting to quit at times, she persevered.
Mockler now works for a pro-life organization sharing stories ranging from abortion, human dignity, prostitution, family life, bioethics, and end-of-life concerns.
Today, Mockler hosts and creates content for SPUC’s SPUCTV. Through interviews, storytelling, and public advocacy, she argues that unborn children, women facing crisis pregnancies, people with disabilities, and older people all deserve protection. SPUC frames its mission as one of defending the right to life “from conception to natural death,” standing in opposition to abortion and assisted suicide.
Yet apart from the campaigns and the camera is a story impacted by conviction, loss, faith, and perseverance.
Mockler's earliest memory of defending preborn babies takes her back to school.
“I was always pro-life as a Catholic,” she told Live Action News. “My earliest memory was in secondary school, being one of two girls to stand up during a debate for the pro-life position in a classroom full of girls.”
Admittedly, Mockler's pro-life stance was not an easy position to hold. Yet she felt she had no choice but to speak out for preborn lives. Besides, Mockler had a personal reason for understanding vulnerability: her brother has Down syndrome.
“I knew I needed to defend those who were deemed more vulnerable in the womb,” she acknowledged.
At that point, nonetheless, Mockler did not fully realize how far the abortion debate would go.
“I did not understand at the time that certain people are obsessed with legalizing abortion up to birth,” she said.
During her college years, abortion ceased to be an abstract moral question and became deeply personal for her.
One night, as Mockler prayed about a young man she liked, something happened that, she said, altered the course of her life.
“The Lord showed me in a vision a baby crying with an injection going into it, and I heard an audible voice of a man crying in the middle of the night,” she recalled.
The next day, Mockler told her friends what she had seen, and they wondered whether it might be connected to abortion.
A few days later, as she and the young man she was interested in walked together to an event, he began to confide in her.
“He told me that doctors tried to abort him, but his mother stood her ground,” she disclosed.
For Mockler, the encounter revealed something far deeper than a political argument.
“It appeared that it still deeply affected his sense of worth as a man and wasn’t open to love,” she stated. “This was the first encounter I had on the spiritual significance of abortion.”
Mockler had always believed that speaking up for preborn children was right, but her convictions deepened during a graduate program in Dublin. There, she lived with a Christian friend who led a monthly prayer group for the preborn.
“Every time I joined, the more scales would fall from my eyes,” she divulged.
Roughly three months into the program, Mockler returned home from work, opened her Bible, and felt overcome by emotion.
“I felt a burden and wept over the loss of the unborn babies,” she explained.
She said that the Holy Spirit gave her a contention: “One day you will weep even more when you hold babies of your own over the loss of lives.”
Furthermore, the words of Psalm 127:3 became a recurring theme in her pro-life convictions: “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.”
Speaking publicly as pro-life came at a cost for Mockler.
“Yes, I had certain family members not be happy, and friends and neighbors unfriend me on Facebook or unfollow me on Instagram,” she said. Yet she refused to let these setbacks prompt her to withdraw her views.
“Anyone who knows me knows I am quite strong, by God’s grace,” she declared. “I also grew up in a big family, so you learn to develop thick skin with siblings.” For Mockler, these losses were small compared with what she believed was at stake.
“It doesn’t bother me, as it’s a small price to pay to defend lives,” she said.
Moreover, Mockler has found new friends among the pro-life community.
“I have met far more wonderful people since then in the pro-life movement who have been great friends and like family to me,” she said. “God can restore what we lost.”
Strikingly, Mockler said that it was her own father who shaped her pro-life convictions the most.
“He raised me to defend the vulnerable,” she said. During Ireland’s abortion referendum, her father put up signs for the preborn in public notwithstanding resistance.
“He has instilled in me the faith and confidence to do this work, and his prayers have protected me,” she told Live Action News.
Nonetheless, Mockler is cognizant that not everyone has that kind of support.
“A lot of women didn’t have a father to offer them the same,” she said. “I now am trying to help women in this area.”
Mockler's Catholic faith remains indispensable in her understanding of human dignity, particularly through Pope John Paul II’s "Theology of the Body."
“It has been such a tremendous resource in my faith journey to help unpack the understanding of the gift of our bodies,” she said. “When I understand my own worth and dignity, it gets easier to protect other people’s worth and dignity.”
Pro-life work has not been easy for Mockler; in fact, she came very close to quitting at the outset.
“As soon as I started, I wanted to quit,” she said, laughing. “It was hard.”
In addition, Mockler mentioned spiritual discouragement, division, and the weight of confronting painful realities.
“The enemy can come in to discourage you and cause disunity,” she said. “But I look back at that time, and I didn’t understand how to protect myself spiritually or know about boundaries, rest, and the importance of physical exercise to help handle what I have to deal with."
Mockler has since learned that perseverance demands more than passion.
“You need boundaries. You need rest. You need to look after your body and your soul,” she explained.
Mockler's path to SPUC started with a significant leap of faith. During COVID-19, while she was living in Dublin and praying about her career, one verse kept coming back to her: Psalm 127:3.
“I felt the Lord prompt me to leave my family and friends and move to Belfast in January with five bags and no job,” she said. Eventually, she did make the move.
“I said, ‘OK Lord, if it’s Your will, it’s Your bill,’” she recounted.
Just three weeks later, Mockler went to a prayer meeting. Though job offers were starting to arrive, she could not shake a sense of unease about them.
Then someone told her, “You slayed giants. Now God is sending you a team this week to slay even more giants with.”
Only days afterwards, a Facebook message arrived about a position with SPUC. She went through three rounds of interviews before being hired. When she was subsequently invited to relocate to Scotland, she once more turned to prayer for guidance.
“I kept hearing, ‘Jesus holds these babies close to His heart,’” she said.
Mockler's SPUC career began in video content creation and she came to understand how to treat other people’s stories with sensitivity.
“How to be a good listener with guests who open up on our show,” she said. “It’s a privilege to steward their hearts this way on the platform we have.”
Importantly, Mockler conceded mistakes made along the way, but she values what they taught her.
“I made plenty of mistakes, and I am grateful for the lessons learned and the team we now have at SPUCTV,” she said. “When we have a spirit of excellence, that in itself is a form of evangelism.”
People who think the pro-life movement is focused solely on abortion may be taken aback by the wider message SPUC promotes.
“At SPUC, we advocate for all lives to be protected because they are just as precious,” she said. She shone a spotlight on people with disabilities and chronic illness, along with elderly people, who are vulnreable to euthanasia and assisted suicide.
“There are certain politicians determined on pushing euthanasia and assisted suicide on these vulnerable people,” she stated. “We defend life in those cases too.”
Notably, SPUCTV’s Heart to Heart offers in-depth interviews with guests who explore topics such as abortion, human dignity, prostitution, family life, bioethics, and end-of-life concerns. Of all the interviews Mockler has hosted, one stands out as particularly moving: her talk with Helena Croft, the founder of Streetlight UK, an organization that supports women involved in prostitution.
“Interviewing Helena Croft, who works entering the brothels to help women in prostitution, and how some of them have had abortions, really opened my eyes,” she said. What impressed Mockler most was Helena’s courage. “I was struck by Helena’s bravery too. It is something I would love to explore more.”
For Mockler, taking part in events like the March for Life goes beyond a symbolic gesture. She sees it as a responsibility.
“It means not being bullied into silence by the pro-abortion movement,” she said. She holds that preborn children, more than anyone, must rely on other people to be their voice.
“The unborn babies need our hope,” she said. “Unlike other advocacy groups, the unborn can’t defend themselves or call for help. When we show up publicly to be a voice for them, others’ minds and hearts can be softened towards the unborn."
If Mockler could speak directly to a woman experiencing an unexpected pregnancy, her message would be simple: “You are not alone. There are lots of people who have your back and want to support you, who can offer resources to you.”
Significantly, Mockler hopes women would realize that courage is possible, even when the future feels daunting.
“Even though it’s hard, you can do hard things,” she reaffirmed. “Your and your baby’s lives matter.”
For Mockler, such messaging is the crux of the pro-life movement — not judgment — but protection, practical help, and hope for both mother and child.
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
Cassy Cooke
·Human Interest
Isabella Childs
·Human Interest
Cassy Cooke
·Human Interest
Angeline Tan
·Human Interest
Right to Life UK
·Human Interest
Lisa Bast
·International
Angeline Tan
·Analysis
Angeline Tan
·Human Interest
Angeline Tan
·Activism
Angeline Tan
·International
Angeline Tan
·