With the inauguration of President Obama already a fleeting memory, men, women and children decended on Washington, D.C. on January 22 and reclaimed the streets for life - at least for one day. They were there to march and speak out in defense of the voiceless ones - the 4,000 children aborted per day in America.
This year's March for Life marked the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand.
The Rally on the Mall was longer than usual, with the March beginning a few minutes before 2 p.m. The last of the Marchers did not pass the Supreme Court until after 4:15. the March for Life crowd has grown enormously in the last 15 years; where it used to take 50 minutes for all the Marchers to crest Constitution Ave., it's now over two and a quarter hours! Conservatively, we think there were 150,000 people.
The youthful flavor to the March in recent years was again on display with youth groups, schools, religious organizations and families all proud to be carrying banners for life. The post-abortive Silent No More contingent was noticeably larger this year. At least eighty men and women spoke in front of the steps of the Supreme Court about the personal experiences that have led them to be "silent no more" about the terrible effects of their own abortion experiences.
The March also ushered in a potentially draconian era under the most pro-abortion President the U.S. has ever seen. We have already seen a reversal of the so-called "Mexico City policy" that once again, and despite economic gloom and debt, opens up new taxpayer funding of abortions overseas. With a ban that began in the Regan administration, this policy has been ping-ponged ever since, most recently with George Bush reinstating the ban and Barack Obama immediately squashing it and adding to our moral debt and taxpayer burden. So the Administration that said in its DNC plank that it wants to seek common ground and reduce abortions, has begun poorly. The candidate of "hope" has heaped another payment due on American citizens' backs and quickly added to abortion's numbers.
But in D.C. the mood was upbeat. The Hudson Valley Coalition for Life arrived with two buses, including St. Teresa of Avila of Sleepy Hollow, St. Theresa's in Briarcliff Manor, St. Augustine's in Ossining, and numerous adults from many parishes.
Theresa Bonopartis, director of Lumina, and Sr. Lucy of the Sisters of Life
Pastor Fr. Michael Keane of Holy Name of Mary in Croton, was a former teacher at Our Lady of Lourdes H.S.. The high school sent 62 students down from Poughkeepise plus teachers, plus parents. A great showing for a high school, from a long distance.
The number of women and men speaking out through the "Silent No More" campaign has grown ...
Fr. Pavone and Janet Morano of Priest for Life are in the center of this Silent No More group
Notice the Franciscan, who has marched for several years -
Italy, Germany and France (below) are regular attendees. And the head of the prolife movement in Great Britain was one of the featured speakers at the Rally preceding the March.
Randall Terry, one of the original founders of Operation Rescue, did good work on his megaphone for several hours. Terry called on the marchers to take their signs to their local abortion mills and pray - "you will save lives..."
40 students from Rutgers
and other students up from Florida
The March for Life - optimistic, and "A Sign of Contradiction"
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