Persuasive people are logical, passionate—and credible. And undergirding credibility is the virtue of integrity. If prolifers want to win people over to the pro-life cause, we should be in the habit of building and repairing our own integrity.

A lack of integrity can be easy to spot. I have chuckled, for instance, when King George III sings, in the Broadway hit Hamilton, “I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love.” The king may plausibly love his subjects, or he may punish them cruelly for wanting to be free, but he can’t do both and maintain integrity.

But sometimes we overlook the failure to call out a lack of integrity closer to home. Most of us know people who claim to be pro-life not because they believe in the protection of unborn children, but for more selfish motives. Politicians, for example, who find electoral advantage in the “pro-life” label but don’t really care for the unborn or their mothers. Or priests who may believe in the cause but adopt the label for moralistic or self-righteous reasons.

We identify ourselves with the common cause “pro-life,” but how well do we police that shared identity? How effectively do we clarify what it means to be pro-life when people with bad motives claim that identity? Do we even recognize our shared responsibility for upholding the integrity of the pro-life movement?

 This past Sunday, Roman Catholics and Christians of many other denominations listened to readings from the Bible that concerned figures repairing their own integrity. In the first we hear about the prophet Isaiah, whose vision of God’s supreme holiness makes him uncomfortably aware that in the past he has used his lips to speak of mundane things. His “unclean lips” must be purified before he can volunteer to call his people back to the holiness of God: “Here I am; send me!” (Isaiah 6)

In the second reading Saint Paul delivers testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He does so as one “born abnormally,” for he identifies himself as “the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because [he] persecuted the Church of God.” But he perseveres in his testimony, fortified by the “grace” or “favor” God has given him. (1 Corinthians 15)

Finally, in the Gospel we hear of Simon Peter’s astonishment at Jesus’ miraculous intervention in his fishing efforts. Peter recognizes Jesus’ divine work and responds: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Nevertheless, Jesus commissions him, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” (Luke 5)

In these cases, we meet men whose credibility is inadequate to the importance of the message they will carry—they have a deficit of integrity. But their humility, their sorrow at their own inadequacy, and their willingness to change the direction of their lives opens them up to God’s intervention. They turn from their past mistakes, and even from past priorities that were not necessarily mistakes—fishing is not typically sinful!—and submit themselves to a new calling from God.

Even prolifers who don’t believe in God may benefit from these biblical examples: Some callings are so important that they require us to give up other satisfactions. The integrity of the movement may mean the sacrifice of personal political advantage, or forfeiting opportunities for moralistic condescension, or any number of other gratifications, some sinful, some not.

Prolifers believe unborn children should be protected in law, and in fact. If we want voters to support pro-life laws and officials to implement them—and if we want to attract people who will help each other to comply—then we must be prepared to build and repair the integrity of our movement.