By KIRSTEN ANDERSEN and LISA BOURNE
(Editor’s Note: The Wanderer went to press this week on January 22, limiting the amount of up-to-date coverage of the March for Life we could include in this issue. More coverage will appear in next week’s issue.
(LifeSiteNews provided the article below. Kirsten Andersen wrote the first part on the various, early Roe v. Wade anniversary marches, and Lisa Bourne wrote the second part on Chicago’s record-breaking January 18 rally. All rights reserved.)
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WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — As hundreds of thousands of people prepared to make the annual pilgrimage to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., for the 42nd annual January 22 March for Life, thousands more who couldn’t make the trip gathered earlier in communities across the nation to commemorate the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
In Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin (R), U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R), and Cong. French Hill (R) led a crowd of thousands on the steps of the state capitol in Little Rock.
“The 2014 general elections were very good for unborn children in our state and nation,” said Executive Director Rose Mimms of Arkansas Right to Life, which organized the event.
“In Arkansas we have a 100 percent pro-life congressional representation in the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, State Capitol, and have a pro-life majority in the Arkansas General Assembly.”
“Folks all across Arkansas understand the importance of speaking out for life and protecting the unborn,” said Cong. Hill. “We are glad to be out here on this beautiful day with a prayerful group for that purpose.”
Among those in attendance at the Little Rock March were Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting, along with other members of the Duggar family, including more than a dozen of their children. One of their daughters, newlywed Jessa Duggar Seewald, took to social media to document the event, sharing a photo of the impressively sized crowd.
In Denver, Roman Catholic Archbishop Samuel Aquila told marchers to be bold and courageous in their defense of the unborn.
“Fear is always the work of the emissaries of death,…of the evil one,” Aquila said. He urged the crowd to spread the message of life throughout their communities, even going door-to-door to educate people about the evils of abortion. “The cause of life deserves excellence,” the archbishop said.
Later, Archbishop Aquila tweeted a photo of the crowd, which he estimated at over 5,000 people.
Despite wet weather in Portland, Ore., more than 1,000 marchers turned out. Reporter Jeff Mapes of The Oregonian said they filled up to three city blocks at a time as they made their way through the downtown area.
At a rally before the March, attendees heard from Bryan Kemper, founder of Stand True Ministries, who called legalized abortion the “modern Auschwitz” and told the crowd, “We cannot hand this holocaust down to the next generation.”
Kemper made no apologies for comparing aborted babies to the Jews slaughtered by Nazis during World War II. “What is there to sugarcoat?” he asked. “It’s about human beings being killed every day.”
In Fort Wayne, Ind., up to 3,000 people gathered to march on the federal courthouse and listen to pro-life speeches from elected officials and prominent activists. The keynote speaker was Pastor Mike Spencer, executive director of the Life Training Institute.
Spencer called abortion “the greatest moral injustice the world has known, in which some people matter and others are candidates for the dumpster.”
“If that’s not evil,” Spencer said, “is anything evil?”
Spencer was critical of pastors who fail to speak out on the issue of abortion for fear of being labeled extremists.
“Their silence shows that they don’t see abortion as all that bad, or [they see] the Gospel as not that good,” Spencer said.
Other cities holding well-attended marches over the January 17 weekend included Birmingham, Ala.; Billings, Mont.; and Syracuse, N.Y.
The national March for Life, expected to attract upward of 200,000 people, took place on Thursday, January 22 — the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Beating Expectations
The 10th annual March for Life Chicago surpassed predictions, drawing a crowd estimated at twice the size of last year’s, while gathering notable figures and marchers across generations and religious denominations.
The city’s new archbishop, Cupich, pro-life Congressmen Dan Lipinski and Peter Roskam, Chicago Bears’ co-owner Pat McCaskey, and pro-life heavyweights Eric Scheidler and Abby Johnson were among the estimated 4,000 plus people gathered in downtown Chicago on Sunday, January 18 to support life nearly 42 years after Roe v. Wade.
Participants at events in conjunction with the March even heard from retired and ailing Francis Cardinal George, OMI.
“It’s a great report, we beat expectations,” March for Life Chicago spokesman Tom Ciesielka told LifeSiteNews.
The numbers bested forecasts of 3,000. Illinois Right to Life, a March for Life Chicago sponsor, called the 2014 March “the largest Chicago March for Life ever,” with a crowd numbering 2,000.
“I’m so glad that thousands of people turned out to tell Chicago that life matters,” Emily Zender, president of March for Life Chicago, said in a statement to LifeSiteNews.
Marchers heard from Archbishop Blase Cupich, chosen to head the Chicago Archdiocese in late 2014.
“We are here to do everything possible to make sure that the right to life is preserved,” the archbishop told the crowd, according to the March statement.
“It’s important for all of us to remember why we are here,” Archbishop Cupich said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “We need to bring to attention that there are those literally struggling to come into the world. We can’t sit still. We have to march.”
Despite his battle with cancer, retired Chicago Archbishop Cardinal George spoke at a March for Life Chicago brunch sponsored by the Chicago-area pro-life organization Aid for Women, a report from ABC 7 said.
“Life is never isolated. We think of ourselves as individuals, but we’re not,” Cardinal George said. “We’re a network of relationships first.”
Mary-Louise Hengesbaugh, former Respect Life director of the Archdiocese of Chicago and 1999 Miss Wisconsin, was emcee for the January 18 March, which brought “huge” Catholic participation from across the Midwest, according to organizers.
There was representation from numerous faith traditions in the crowd, including Orthodox Church leaders, such as the Right Rev. Anthony, bishop of Toledo for the Antiochian Orthodox Church, and the Right Rev. Paul, bishop of Chicago and the Midwest for the Orthodox Church in America, as well as Pastor Mark Jobe, founder of New Life Centers, and Rev. Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor of Chicago’s historic Moody Church.
The event had significant representation from college students and young adults, organizers told LifeSiteNews.
Katie Melody, head of Students for Life of Illinois, remarked that young people have never known a world without abortion.
Melody said the younger generation is “hurting,” and that abortion hurts her generation the most, according to the Chicago Sun Times.
“Unfortunately for my friends and myself, abortion has always been a reality in our lifetimes,” she said. “We come of age in a world where destroying a preborn life is considered normal.”
Cong. Lipinski pledged support for the proposed bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks, with some exceptions, that is now in the U.S. House. Cong. Roskam spoke about how his daughter’s social media posts from last year’s March led a college friend to choose life for her unborn baby.
Bears co-owner Pat McCaskey read a pro-life adaptation of the classic Tennyson poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, spoke along with his father, pro-life icon Joe Scheidler, as well as his son, pro-life blogger Sam Scheidler.
Pro-life advocate Sandy Hiltebrand spoke as well, along with her daughter Julie Cooper, and granddaughter, Mary.
Former Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life activist Abby Johnson worked to minister to roughly 30 pro-abortion protesters at the March, according to organizers.
“We are fighting for your right to life,” Johnson told them, saying this is “not just about the babies, but about everyone — everyone has a right to live and breathe.”
“All life matters,” Johnson said.
Zender and organizers were happy with the remarkable turn out in support of life.
“Abortion tells us that we are essentially disposable. What a disservice — and insult — that is to every one of us,” Zender said.
“All of these people came here to firmly proclaim that each human being, from conception through natural death, is important and has the right to life.”
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