“Why don’t you make like a tree, and get outta here?”

That was Biff Tannen’s unforgettable line to Marty McFly in Back to the Future—the #1 film of September 1985. That same month, Good Counsel was just six months old.

On the movie screen, it was a laugh line. But in real life, for so many moms facing an unexpected pregnancy in 1985, it was no joke. Family, friends—even society—told them to “get out,” to go away quietly, to solve the “problem” by disappearing. And sadly, too many moms still hear some version of that line in 2026. The pressure has not gone away; it has only changed its language.

Yet in that same September of 1985, St. John Paul II reminded the world that the Church must always be the voice for the voiceless child in the womb. Quoting Psalm 139, he proclaimed: “The unborn human being’s right to life is one of the inalienable human rights.”

For forty years now, Good Counsel has stood as living proof of that truth. We have welcomed mothers when the world told them to leave. We have said, and continue to say: You belong here. Your baby belongs here. Love belongs here.

Today, in our 40th Anniversary Year, we look back with gratitude and forward with hope. The Holy Spirit who guided us in 1985 is the same Spirit who draws mothers to us today—knitting them and their babies together in the womb, just as He did you and me.

Thank you for being part of this mission—for four decades strong. Please continue to be generous as we begin the next forty years.

(And now…I’ll make like a tree and—this time—stay planted.)

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