In late January former Planned Parenthood director Cecile Richards revealed in a New York Magazine interview that she is battling glioblastoma, an “incurable brain cancer for which the median survival rate is 15 months.” On reading the news I immediately began praying for Ms. Richards. May God grant that she beat the odds and live a very long and healthy life.

I suspect many others like me are praying for her. I also suspect there are those who will be puzzled by this. After all, Cecile Richards was long the public face of the biggest death-dealing organization in North America. Much more than any military, mafia, or drug cartel, Planned Parenthood brings death, misery, and incalculable suffering to millions of Americans every year while also working to export the blight of abortion overseas. I can think of no one, no tyrant or criminal in any country on earth, with more murder on his or her conscience.

And yet, prolifers are praying for her. Isn’t that odd? Isn’t Cecile Richards the enemy, the former general leading the other side, the dark side, into battle?

No. It isn’t odd. And no, Cecile Richards isn’t the enemy. She is a human being. It’s true she has a lot to answer for. But like any one of us—even babies in the womb—Cecile Richards values her life and wants to keep living. I also value her life—and the lives of babies in the womb—and want her to keep living. That is the very essence of being pro-life. We want all human beings to live, to grow, to thrive, to be happy. There is no human being beyond the radius of this simple wish. When it comes to life issues, everyone’s life has equal value. Everyone is on the near side of the friend line. Everyone is “us.”

Cecile Richards herself acknowledges this, at least tacitly. In the New York Magazine interview, the former hard-driving political operative speaks wistfully about her grandson Teddy, born just a few days after her first surgery. Teddy is getting hair, Richards says, while the cancer is taking hers. She also drops a line used by her late mother, Ann Richards, the former Democratic governor of Texas: “Why should your life only be about you?” Cecile Richards understands that we are all in this together, that human lives are connected in a myriad of mysterious ways. One might even say that a recognition of the brotherhood of humanity is what drove her to devote her life to the abortion cause. Being director of Planned Parenthood was obviously not an easy job. It demanded sacrifices. Only someone with a service mentality could do it. That abortion is murderous and thus destroys the human family is a contradiction Richards cannot, or will not, see. That her service mentality was warped and led to weeping and pain, she cannot, or will not, acknowledge. But acting on faulty ideas doesn’t diminish her humanity. For all her hateful work, and for all the lives that lie ruined because of her advocacy, Cecile Richards still believes that life is worth living—and saving. She is part of the human family. That is why she is deserving of our prayers.

Cecile Richards was, and remains, on the other side of the abortion debate. But only up to a point. No one can ever be an absolute enemy of life, because everyone who advocates for death must do so as a living soul. “I’ve been blessed,” Richards says in the interview, reflecting on her life and her ongoing survival. Yes, she has been blessed. So has everyone ever conceived. When the debates are over and the fight for life begins, it becomes clear that there is no “other side” of the life issue after all.