Thanks be to God for Dolly Parton. It maybe hasn’t been the best thing for productivity, but what a joy it has been to watch some of the videos that people have posted since her death. Surely by now you’ve seen “Stairway to Heaven.” Or that she sang “Home Sweet Home” with Mötley Crüe to raise money for homeless youth at Covenant House. To see her with her parents is a particular treat. I’m fond of the more recent duet with Zach Williams, “There Was Jesus.” And she reportedly wanted “If We Never Meet Again This Side of Heaven” at her funeral.
Her life was a delightful gift to us all. She lived it well.
I talked with theologian Pia de Solenni and Leigh Snead, author of Infertile but Fruitful: Finding Fulfillment When You Can’t Conceive, about Dolly Parton’s life and legacy. Pia coined the phrase we used as the title of our conversation: “Be More Dolly: Gratitude for the Parton Way.”
One of the things I wanted to make sure we talked about is her struggle with infertility. Dolly Parton was careful not to get herself caught up in partisanship and labels more broadly. But certain commentators — and in major newspapers — have taken to presenting her as someone who chose to be childless, as if she is the new poster child for a movement. In fact, she and her husband suffered — not only did they want to have children, but they had a name chosen for their first daughter. It was a true pain in their lives — as she discussed with such love for others who carry overwhelmingly burdensome crosses (more people than we recognize many days). It’s cruel to dismiss the reality of her suffering because she chose to bear her cross and be fruitful in the ways she could — becoming something of a mother to American culture, exhorting us to be good and grateful and joyful, and fun.
Her Imagination Library book-gifting program is a mission we could all consider taking up with children in our own lives. Do you make sure your godchild has books, your nephews and nieces, the kids down the block with a single mother doing her best but struggling month to month? You don’t have to provide for every child, but if we all cover some of them . . . we will succeed in Being More Dolly, and that will be a good thing. She was never pregnant and never raised a child of her own, but goodness, so much of what she did and said and touched was life-giving!
I have no doubt we will never know the full extent of her charity, but none of these priorities surprises me:
In February, Parton announced in a video message that East Tennessee Children’s Hospital in Knoxville was becoming Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital. Its pediatric nurses now clock in every shift under her name.
The renaming capped a long relationship with children’s hospitals in her home state. In Nashville, Parton funded the pediatric cancer program at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt with what Vanderbilt calls a transformational contribution, given in honor of her friend Dr. Naji Abumrad and her niece, Hannah Dennison, who was treated there for leukemia as a child. In 2022, she added $1.0 million for pediatric infectious disease research at Vanderbilt, including work on antibiotic resistance and infections in children being treated for cancer. “I love all children,” she said when announcing that gift. “No child should ever have to suffer.”
This January, to mark her 80th birthday, she released a new version of her 1976 song “Light of a Clear Blue Morning”with Lainey Wilson, Miley Cyrus, Queen Latifah, and Reba McEntire, with proceeds benefiting pediatric cancer research at Monroe Carell. . . .
Parton helped raise money to build LeConte Medical Center, a new hospital in Sevier County, Tennessee, where she grew up. A 2007 benefit concert brought in $500,000, and Dollywood and her Dixie Stampede dinner theater pledged $250,000 each, a combined $1.0 million for the project.
The hospital opened in Sevierville in 2010 with the 30,000-square-foot Dolly Parton Center for Women’s Services. The center includes the Dolly Parton Birthing Unit, where more than 600 babies were born in 2024. In a rural county, that access means families can deliver close to home.
The list goes on, but I just love her heart for life. And, as we’ve been seeing, that is a common experience. I often think of the blueprint for a “Culture of Life and Civilization of Love” that John Paul II presented in his Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”). I don’t know if she ever read it, but she lived a great deal of the spirit of it — because she took Jesus seriously.
And, I think if you’ve read this far — and you are a regular reader here — you know I’m not claiming Dolly Parton for “my side” by calling her pro-life. Rather, I’m challenging myself and anyone who wants to join me in being more Dolly. There’s some real love for life there.
God love her.
It’s About the Child
There are about 30 paragraphs in the latest piece (as I write) in the New York Times about a court hearing on the surrogacy case involving a California couple, an Alaska surrogate mother, and a baby in critical condition in Texas. It’s not until the last two that the child is really focused on. We learn about IVF treatments and plenty of details about the adults. It’s even identified as a culture-war story before we are told anything about the health of the baby. But it’s the life of a child that the story is really about.
As you probably know by now, McKenna West went to Texas to deliver the son that Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed had ordered. When it was determined that the baby would have a heart condition, the customers asked West to get an abortion. She couldn’t go through with it, went to Texas, and had the baby — with the protection of the law for the boy and state intervention to make sure, frankly, that he wasn’t left to die.
Chiefly because Live Action and Alliance Defending Freedom have been involved (ADF representing West in court), and West had an op–ed in the New York Post, this whole mess is being caricatured as an “anti-abortion” crusade to end surrogacy. That’s exactly what the lawyer for Gilkar and Ahmed said in his closing: This is about an effort to “eradicate surrogacy.”
The good news is that it is actually much simpler than that. It’s about the life of one child — a child who has been barred from being with the one mother he knew in utero. A Texas court gave custody to the couple who ordered the child they’ve named Rumi — the same couple that wanted him aborted.
From the end of that report:
Ms. Duesler [guardian ad litem] also offered a medical update on the boy, saying he would be in critical care for at least 30 more days. She said that it would be a “minimum” of three to four weeks before the first heart procedure could be declared a success. She did not object to his eventually being transported out of the state, if medically allowed.
The two parties in the case differed during the hearing even on what to call the baby. Ms. Gilkar and Mr. Ahmed gave him the name Rumi, which their lawyer said had been put on his birth certificate. Ms. West’s lawyers used a different name, chosen by Ms. West, until they were told by the judge to stop.
Please pray for this child. (You may have heard him referred to as Gabriel as well — that’s the name West has used for him.)
Surrogacy does need to be banned. And it’s far from only pro-life types who see how damaging it can be to a child, to the surrogate. The whole arrangement is a dangerous commodification of life.
I talked with Jennifer Lahl, a nurse by training and founder of the Center for Bioethics and Culture, about surrogacy and other reproductive matters in the news, including Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s egg-freezing.
The video of our conversation is here.
In watching most of AOC’s videos, I was struck by how matter-of-fact she was, going between a package of frozen peas and a gel pack to help with the swelling associated with the sped-up egg production. At one point, she answers viewers’questions and winds up talking incredibly casually about why she is freezing eggs and not embryos. She didn’t even acknowledge a substantial difference between the two, never mind the significant moral significance of the latter. Lahl, among other things, recommends a moratorium on embryo freezing. She’s a treasure trove of research and testimony about surrogacy and egg donation — the underbelly, really, of what AOC is attempting to mainstream and about which the New York Times wants to dismiss super-practical human-life questions.
This is a tragic situation. I pray the boy survives. Hard cases make bad law and all, but can’t we see how this case shows us how unnatural this all is? I know it’s not chic to talk about such things in conservative commentary these days, but I can’t even imagine the trauma this poor child is suffering. I assume he is going to stay with the California couple. Pray that they come to the kind of deep love for him that makes their hearts forget that they ever wanted him not to exist. She clearly wanted to be a mother. Let that desire foster love that works to heal.
Around National Review
Michael J. New:
• Even Abortion Supporters Admit Post-Dobbs Predictions Have Not Come True
• More Reasons Why Democrats Can’t Moderate on Abortion
Wesley J. Smith:
• ‘Bioethics Community’ Publishes Open Letter of Support for Anthony Fauci
• New York Times Ethicist Column Blesses Adultery Because Husband Has Alzheimer’s
• Should Suicide by Self-Starvation Be Grounds for Hospice Care?
• John Gerardi: Why Democrats Can’t Moderate on Abortion
Me:
• Thank You, Lord, for Dolly Parton
• Giving Head Start a New Start: ACF Responds to Critics with New Look at Recent History
• Making Sense of the Fertility Frenzy
• From Noah, John, Luke, Paul & Mary to Cora, Dawson & Callan
• Will Republicans Work to Expose Democrats’ Abortion Extremism?
• Don’t Believe the Dems’ Dark Abortion Hysterics
• I talk with author and educator — and mother — Lizanne Pando about her new children’s book on adoption, Cyndi Panda’s Adoption Story: A Heartwarming Tale of Love, Belonging, and Forever Families.
Other Things
Australian Broadcasting Company: Mother gives birth to biologically unrelated twins as surrogacy coincides with natural pregnancy
OSV News: Judge Temporarily Blocks Illinois Assisted Suicide Law; Plaintiffs Feel ‘Relief, Gratitude for Now’
A thousand times over I want to recommend this piece from Katelyn Walls Shelton and Chaney Mullins Gooley. It’s a 101 for where to start to get to know frontline pro-life services. Make sure to know, support, share — and think creatively about adding to the mix.
When a woman finds out she is pregnant, her first need is often someone to talk to. Unfortunately, the abortion industry pushes abortion as the one-size-fits-all solution. But there are life-affirming, non-judgmental phone lines available that can be a safe place for a woman to talk through her situation.
Option Line is a 24/7 hotline with the ability to refer a woman to her closest local pregnancy center. Sometimes they can even make an appointment for her. She can also learn about housing options in her area, or request to speak to a nurse on Option Line Plus.
Pregnancy Decision Line uses phone coaches to provide options for counseling right from the phone or chat. This virtual support can especially help when women are unable or unwilling to visit a pregnancy center.
When a woman has multiple complex needs during her pregnancy or afterwards, Loveline connects abortion-minded women and struggling moms to case management that includes access to local resources, direct financial assistance, and mental health counseling, as well as direct material support and ongoing care coordination.
New York Post: Pro-life group offers to pay legal fees for activists who defy New Jersey’s new abortion law.
An international pro-life group is offering to foot the bill for activists who wind up in the crosshairs of a law signed by New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) last week to crack down on protests near abortion facilities.
40 Days For Life raised concerns that vague language in that bill about intimidation and threats could be stretched to target peaceful pro-lifers who want to pray for the unborn outside abortion centers.
“Prayer is not a crime. Holding a sign is not intimidation. Offering a woman help is not coercion,” the group’s CEO Shawn Carney told The Post. “This law is designed to scare people of faith off the sidewalks outside abortion facilities by creating the constant threat of prosecution and costly lawsuits.”
Upcoming
• September 16, Rethinking “Kin-First”: Placing Children’s Interests at the Center of Foster Care Policy with Naomi Schaefer Riley at the American Enterprise Institute.
• September 29: Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) Angels in Adoption Celebration in Washington, D.C. (An event where I once bought Markwayne Mullin’s daughter a balloon animal — proceeds to CCAI.)
• The National Council for Adoption Hall of Fame is September 30 in D.C. NCFA is also accepting proposals through September 30 for its annual conference in Philadelphia.
• October 13–14 Napa Institute Faith and Business Conference, New York City. (They are honoring the wonderful Rob and Berni Neal this year.)
• For more upcoming events, including the Human Life Foundation dinner in New York in September where I’ll be introducing Cardinal Timothy Dolan (mentioned in previous editions of The Lifeline), sign up so you receive this in your inbox weekly. Cardinal Dolan had to put up with me as his Pro-Life Commission chairwoman for too long — so we will continue the torture one more night. In seriousness, his commitment to protecting innocent human life — fighting for it as the civil-rights issue it is — in arguably the most hostile state in the union is a dedication to be grateful for.
There’s so much more we could be covering. Keep coming back. Thank you and God bless you.
Go do something for life. Buy a book this week for a child who might not otherwise get the thrill of a new book to read. See if your local maternity home needs volunteers. Find out what your local resources are. Keep an eye out at church, in the world. More people need to know they are not alone in their lives — knowing you are loved and not alone is key to that Culture of Life and Civilization of Love.