Born in 1951 in Erie, Pennsylvania, Juli Loesch Wiley began her social activism at age sixteen participating in anti-war demonstrations. In 1969 after three months at Antioch College, she worked as a boycott organizer for the United Farm Workers in California, Detroit, and Cleveland, gaining experience with non-violent protest methods.
Returning to Erie in 1970, she worked with several activist organizations before co-founding Pax Center, a Benedictine peace and justice community involved in peace education, nonviolence training, soup kitchen work, hospitality, and anti-nuclear organizing. A lay associate there from 1972 to 1983, she supported herself by working at a variety of unskilled jobs.
While advocating anti-nuclear causes including raising concern about the effects of nuclear radiation on fetuses, Wiley became acquainted with pro-lifers and gradually came to agree with their views. In 1979 she was the founder and coordinator of Prolifers for Survival (PS), which was established as a bridge between anti-nuclear/peace and anti-abortion groups. She also edited the newsletter P.S. (circulation approximately 3000). She ceased active involvement in PS when she moved to California in 1983, although the organization remained active until 1987.
In 1987 Wiley organized “We Will Stand Up,” an independent national campaign to promote “abortion-free cities” during the visit of Pope John Paul II to the U.S.
Wiley was arrested approximately 15 times for various pro-life, peace, and UFW protest actions. These activities included leafletting at a nuclear weapons manufacturer, sitting in at abortion clinics, and spilling blood on the floor of the Pentagon to protest abortion and nuclear arms.
Wiley has written extensively. She has been a frequent columnist for the National Catholic Register, and a contributing editor to The New Oxford Review, Erie Christian Witness and many other Catholic and pro-life periodicals. She wrote several essays for the 1985 book Prolife Feminism. She has also spoken widely to groups and classes and participated in discussion panels, debates and talk shows, mostly on a local level with little remuneration.
Other organizations in which she has worked include the Seamless Garment network, JustLife Political Action Committee, Operation Rescue, Prolife Nonviolent Action Project, Feminists for Life and the Prolife Nonviolent Action Committee.
Since her marriage to Don Wiley in 1988 and the birth of son Ben in 1989, Wiley has been less actively demonstrating and organizing, although she still writes.
