By PEGGY MOEN
ST. PAUL — “About time!”
That was the response of Tom Kuehn when I remarked that more and more men are demonstrating with Silent No More, an organization of people who regret their abortions.
Kuehn held a sign that said “I Regret Lost Fatherhood” at the 44th annual Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life March, held at the capitol here January 22. Silent No More representatives stood at the top of the capitol stairs, near the day’s speakers.
A photo of Kuehn holding his sign is on the cover of God Is Our Father: The Journey of My Soul, his autobiography. He has given away 2,000 copies of that book, and a Spanish version just came out. In it, Kuehn tells his own story of lost fatherhood, “not only from his own father, but also from the pain he caused in the murder of his unborn son,” says a description of the book at amazon.com.
Kuehn’s “about time” comment could have been the theme for the 2017 MCCL march. Pro-lifers there expressed increased hopes for victory, hailing the incoming Trump administration and Republican majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, as well as in the Minnesota legislature.
Asked if she was feeling optimistic, St. Paul pro-life activist Margot Hird said, “More than I have been in my entire life.”
“There’s nothing else our new president can do,” she said, but act to end abortion, given the promises Trump made about Supreme Court appointments and other pro-life initiatives.
The very next day, President Trump signed an executive order reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which bans government funding of foreign pro-abort groups like the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
The numbers at the MCCL rally supported pro-lifers’ burgeoning hopes.
At first, the Sunday afternoon rally appeared sparsely attended, as though the chilly air and gray skies deterred Minnesota pro-lifers more than the blizzards and brutal wind chills ever had.
But, in short order, buses pulled up to the capitol grounds and people, from infants to the elderly, poured out and began to march around the capitol grounds.
Police estimated march attendance at 4,500 to 5,000. To me, the crowd was as densely packed as it was in 2001, when 7,000 pro-lifers cheered George W. Bush’s election.
The 2017 marchers were joyful, but not yet jubilant.
“I’m so happy to see so many of you here today,” said MCCL’s longtime president, Leo LaLonde, as he opened the formal program for the march. “A new day is dawning…new hope and new possibilities!”
“We have a great opportunity . . . but our battle is far from over,” he warned. He noted that the opposition has been reinvigorated by pro-life successes, and said that the cause is still at risk.
He called for defunding Planned Parenthood, decrying its selling of baby parts and other evils.
“Defund Planned Parenthood” was a frequent cry from the crowd and a popular theme on the signs marchers carried.
Karen Lysne of St. Paul bore a “No Tax Dollars to Abortion Providers” sign and told The Wanderer she was there “because I want to end abortion and I want to end paying for abortion.”
She and her friend, Karla Igo of Grand Rapids, Minn., both commented that society and culture need to return to a respect for life, from conception to natural death.
Igo said we should offer alternatives such as adoption. She stressed that no one is trying to deny health care to women — despite the claims of those in the previous day’s Women’s March in St. Paul, which was a much larger, but much older, group.
Along with defunding Planned Parenthood, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life has other items on its 2017 legislative agenda, announced from the podium by MCCL Treasurer Cathy Blaeser. Those items are ending taxpayer-funded abortions and requiring the licensing and inspection of abortion facilities.
Supporting that agenda will be a pro-life majority Minnesota House and Senate, though both the governor, Mark Dayton, and the lieutenant governor, Tina Smith, are pro-abort stalwarts.
Kurt Daudt, the pro-life speaker of the Minnesota House, told the assembled marchers: “Minnesota is a pro-life majority state.”
“I am confident that this year we can end taxpayer funding of abortion, we can defund Planned Parenthood, and we can provide the most basic protections for women by making sure that abortion clinics are licensed and inspected,” said Daudt.
Joyce Peppin, Minnesota House majority leader, told the crowd “our efforts are having success” as abortions are at their lowest number since Roe v. Wade was handed down.
“We must remain strong and we must never, never give up the fight for life,” she said.
Michelle Fischbach — the first woman ever elected president of the Minnesota Senate — told the marchers she was encouraged by “seeing so many pro-lifers and so many young people” in their midst.
“I wish you could see what I can see from the podium,” she said, referring to the assemblage spread out over the capitol steps and grounds.
Many of Minnesota’s pro-life elected officials, including state legislators, were in attendance and were introduced during the program.
Minnesota’s pro-life members of Congress — Jason Lewis, Erik Paulsen, Tom Emmer, and Collin Peterson — sent messages to the pro-life event, but were unable to attend. They had “a busy weekend,” said Andrea Rau, MCCL’s legislative director, referring to the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
“They are with us in spirit today.”
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