Lauren McAfee, founder of Stand for Life and director of ministry for Hobby Lobby, sat down with Live Action president and founder Lila Rose to discuss her family’s battle against the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate and her own sometimes painful journey to motherhood.
McAfee is the granddaughter of the founder of Hobby Lobby — and growing up in a Christian family, she was raised to value life. Her mother was on the board of a pregnancy center, as was McAfee after she graduated from college. Together, her family overcame a years-long legal battle to protect their right to refuse to pay for abortifacient birth control.
Standing up for pro-life convictions
McAfee spoke about the moment she learned that the Affordable Care Act was mandating that her family’s business Hobby Lobby provide and pay for drugs and devices that were considered to be abortifacient in its health care plan. They held a family meeting at her uncle’s house where they discussed their options.
“And because of our convictions about life — we believe what the Bible teaches that all life is valuable and that life has dignity and that includes life in the womb — and so it is not okay to take the life of an innocent child in the womb,” said McAfee. “So because of our convictions, we had to face this decision of what are we going to do. Where the government is saying we are being required to cover this. If we are out of compliance with that [rule], the government would fine the company… over a million dollars a day. So not sustainable — a day, not a year — a million dollars a day. And that was the reality. We could either comply with this mandate or fight…”
If they fought and lost, it could mean that Hobby Lobby would go out of business. Regardless, the family decided to stand strong in their convictions and fight. “That was what became the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case,” she said.
The family lost at every court level and faced “really scary times,” but they appealed each decision until they reached the Supreme Court in 2012 — where they won their case by just one vote. The court ruled that as a privately held company, Hobby Lobby did not have to comply with a government order.
Stand for Life
That experience, working more closely with the pro-life movement throughout the legal battle, inspired McAfee to be more involved in pro-life work and start a collaborative effort to bring together pro-life leaders. Stand for Life was born out of that, she explained.
Stand for Life is an organization that connects leaders, organizations, and influencers in order to build a culture of life, a society that knows everyone is created in the image of God. It helps churches to continue to do what the Church has long done: help others. Stand for Life has united over 100 organizations and denominations.
Building a family
McAfee also spoke to Rose about her journey to motherhood, which included infertility and adoption. She shared with Rose the cancer diagnosis of her daughter Zion and the loss of her adoptive son Ezra to his biological family member after a year of parenting him.
“I had to explain to Zion… that she had to say goodbye forever to her brother and that we had to hand him over and never see him again,” said McAfee. “And so two hours later that’s what we did. We handed him off to the family member that was going to be taking him, who we didn’t know, and just pray that he would be cared for. And we have not seen him or heard about him since,” she said through tears.
It’s been more than a year since they said goodbye to Ezra, and the couple since adopted daughter Zara.
Despite the pain, she encourages other families to consider adoption.
“I would encourage families to do homework and look into [adoption] and consider it,” she said. “I can say, ‘Yes, it’s brought some of my most painful circumstances in my life, but it’s also brought the most beautiful circumstances. And I think anything that’s worth doing in life is going to come with challenges as well as blessings and specifically, the Lord calls all of us to care for the vulnerable and those in need. And that doesn’t mean that every family is called to adopt or foster, but it does mean everyone can do something.”
She added, “And so for families that are considering maybe that does mean for our family pursuing adoption or pursuing being a foster parent, that they continue to be prayerful about what that could look like, and know that yes, it’s scary… but the Lord sustained us every step of the way and the Lord will give strength. … If He calls us, He will be in it with us.”
