Right to Life of Michigan, Michigan Knights of Columbus co-sponsor dinner to raise funds for election campaign, advocacy
TROY — Margo Damoose’s pro-life witness began April 10, 1975, when, as an infant, she was placed on a U.S. Air Force C-130 along with hundreds of other infants being evacuated out of South Vietnam as the army of North Vietnam was approaching.
“Operation Babylift” saw 3,330 orphans evacuated by the United States and placed for adoption in America.
Damoose was one of those orphans. Because of her mother's sacrifice, she can today become an advocate for life, serving on the school board in Petoskey and promoting pregnancy resource centers in northern Michigan while raising her four children with her husband, Michigan state senator John Damoose.
“But none of that would be possible if my birth mother had not chosen life for me,” said Damoose, while giving the keynote address at the 48th annual Respect Life Benefit Dinner, co-sponsored by Right to Life of Michigan and the Michigan Knights of Columbus.
Damoose spoke to 550 attendees at the San Marino Club in Troy, recalling how she was born into difficult circumstances — her birth certificate doesn’t include a name for a father, and she was born amidst the carnage of a war.
“So the reason that I am standing here today is that I am pro-life, because in the truest sense of the word, I am that life,” Damoose said. “So often in the world today, especially when it comes to the subject of life and abortion, we hear about people throwing around words like exceptions, circumstances, life situations and options. But I am proof that we don’t have to be conceived in the perfect circumstances or born into ideal environments.”
Damoose was raised in an orphanage in Saigon, South Vietnam, operated by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres, raising thousands of infants and children abandoned during the war, many of them fathered by American servicemembers with Vietnamese mothers.
“I can’t imagine the bravery of these holy men and women who fed and cared for the thousands of abandoned babies during the Vietnam War,” Damoose said. “At that time, there was no question in the minds of these priests and sisters that these young lives should be rescued from death or the streets of a war-torn country. This is a startling comparison to the world we live in today where life seems to have so little value.”
Damoose and her daughter recently were going through family records when they came across paperwork from the orphanage, which showed that nobody came to the orphanage to visit Damoose and no family members ever reached out to claim her. It was at this moment that Damoose began to cry.
“Because when she looks at me, she sees her mother, not someone who was abandoned, and definitely not something to be discarded,” Damoose said. “But all of you know the real story: I was never abandoned by God.”
Damoose shared photos with the room of her being raised in an orphanage, or babies being stowed away on military aircraft to leave a warzone.
“The U.S. and South Vietnamese in unprecedented efforts worked to evacuate the country. Thousands of people, military collaborators, journalists, humanitarians, all needed to be evacuated out of South Vietnam,” Damoose said. “Many of you have now seen the infamous photos of the South Vietnamese trying to flee the capital in April of 1975.
“Imagine the sheer scale and military effort it took to transport over 3,000 children in just one month in the midst of a terrible war,” Damoose added. “It is a striking contrast that less than two years after the U.S. battled over Roe v. Wade, they would be evacuating thousands of orphans out of Vietnam.”
Damoose’s circumstances led her and her husband to be outspoken advocates for life. Sen. Damoose serves on the Michigan state Senate Pro-Life Caucus, while she works at her parish and volunteers at a pregnancy care center, caring for women in difficult pregnancy situations.
The greatest joy in her work is when she is counseling a woman in a difficult pregnancy situation, when they feel all hope has abandoned them, and Damoose can assure them that God has never and will never abandon them.
“That is a miracle as great as any evacuation flight,” Damoose said. “It is in those moments that I am reminded that God doesn't just save us from something, he saves us for something. We do not need to be world leaders to save a life. We only need to be available to be open to God's call. When we value the dignity of the person standing right in front of us, we are doing the heroic work of God.”
It is because of what God had done in her life that Damoose feels obligated to continue the work of being God’s loving witness to life.
“God didn't rescue me from a war zone just so I could be fairly unknown,” Damoose said. “He rescued me so that I could eventually stand here in Michigan and be a voice for those who cannot yet speak. We must never forget, we must never let the world forget that the dignity of a human being is not determined by the circumstances of their birth, but by the love of their Creator. Today, I stand before you not as an abandoned child of a war, but as a daughter of the King here to remind us all that life is the first and most fundamental right we are called to defend.”
Continuing to be a beacon for life
The annual dinner is a collaboration between the Knights of Columbus and Right to Life Michigan to recommit themselves to the mission to protect life in every stage.
The dinner was one of the first public events Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger attended as the newly installed archbishop of Detroit in March 2025.
“I’m so happy to be here again this year because this was one of the very first events I attended last year when I was still brand new in Detroit, but now that I've been here for over a year, I just had to go back,” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “But it is wonderful to be here for life, as are you.”
Archbishop Weisenburger recalled that he was in high school when he first heard about the debates surrounding life issues in the country and was glad to hear about the issue from the Church’s perspective.
“Especially in our Western culture, and even as a young teenager, I remember recalling what I was hearing,” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “Thank God I was hearing it from the Church, and I was hearing the truth. I like to think our Church, which also stands with so many others, continues to be a beacon of truth about life, and it is critical that we stand together in these moments.”
Amber Roseboom, president of Right to Life of Michigan, thanked both the Michigan Knights of Columbus and Archbishop Weisenburger for their support of the pro-life cause.
"I had the distinct pleasure and honor of meeting with the archbishop, His Excellency, about a month ago, and I said, 'I sort of see ourselves as an extension of the Church,'” Roseboom said. “And he said, ‘No, not sort of, you are an extension of the Church.’ That is so true. Our firm reliance on our Lord and his intimate involvement and wisdom and guidance in our work is what is bearing fruit in this new terrain.”
Roseboom highlighted Right to Life of Michigan’s “Life: The Other Choice” campaign, challenging pro-life advocates to change the conversation around abortion and to show women they can choose life and be supported.
“We need to move to an apostolic stance and devise strategies with the understanding that we are in a non-Christian environment today,” Roseboom said. “I think we know that the reality of our time here in Michigan is that a woman can have an abortion at any point in her pregnancy for any reason. That is not hyperbole — any point in her pregnancy up to the moment of birth. Public support at this point weighs heavily in favor of choice.”
Despite the passage of Proposal 3 in 2022, which enshrined abortion in the Michigan state constitution, Roseboom said pro-lifers across the state know that no matter the challenges, the call to choose life and choose love persists.
“Look around you tonight. We have a huge crowd. Our affiliates are growing. We're seeing our influence across our communities. We're saving lives and reshaping the culture to welcome and embrace life,” Roseboom said.
Barry Borsenik, state deputy for the Michigan Knights of Columbus, presented Brad Smith, development coordinator for Right to Life of Michigan, with a $10,000 check to support Right to Life Michigan’s "Standing for Life in Michigan: America’s 250th Birthday" campaign, which aims to equip voters with information about pro-life candidates in the November 2026 elections, help women and families choose life with pro-life media and outreach, provide resources for Right to Life of Michigan’s 80 affiliates throughout the state and defend and advance life-affirming laws in Lansing.
“Friends, we are in a race with Planned Parenthood,” Smith said. “They bring darkness, lies, and fear. By the grace of God, we are armed with truth and love and compassion. We must do all we can to reach people across our communities with the truth about abortion and a way to choose life. I believe in our work at this moment in our nation's history could not be more important.”
