LifeNet

March for Life part 4: A young Jesuit priest's homily

"Joy and sadness." and "Solidarity."  Beautiful.

 

March for Life Part 3; stranded students - build a snow altar and go to Mass

Stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, students from Nebraska and Iowa who'd traveled to DC for the March for life - whole story at the the link.

At about 9:30 p.m. Friday, the buses lurched to a stop at mile marker 133, and the group had to become comfortable for awhile -- because there they stayed for the next 23 hours. More buses with others from across the country were stuck with them, including a group from Nebraska.

An accident had stopped traffic up the road, Behm said, and in the hours it took to clear up, the snow rendered the buses immobile.

Thankfully, the buses has toilets -- until those filled up, Behm said.

About half a mile down the road, a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation station was equipped with bathrooms and food. The students were able to make use of them -- by walking there and back -- as the hours wore on.

As Saturday morning came, Behm said members of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis approached his group about performing Mass.

“It wasn’t even my idea, but I’m the one blowing up on Twitter and Facebook now,” Behm said with a laugh.

Equipped with his travel Mass kit, an altar of snow was built as hundreds congregated outside in the cold.

“I just happened to be there, the wrong place at the right time,” Behm said.

 

2016 March for Life, Part 2 America Media 3 minute video

Nice little job by the Jesuit America media publication group, with mostly interviews with young students.

This would be an excellent short video to introduce the abortion issue (or suggest travel to a pro-life event) to a middle school or high school group!

Friday's March for Life, Part 1

This is part 1 because we will have at least two more parts over the next two days, including the Created Equal representation, and a short video from America Media - publishers of the Jesuit America magazine. 

Our bus was cancelled, so several of us drove down. The weather was really not a  problem; started snowing after one o'clock & didn't affect the drive back.

The numbers were MUCH lower - probably 20-25,000, a quarter of the #'s for the last few years. Whereas it usually takes two hours for the whole March to pass a given point, Friday it took less than half an hour.  The much-hyped coming blizzard. We spoke with people from Florida - large contingent - Indiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, South Dakota, with Missouri and Illinois much in evidence. 

Media coverage -. Nothing on the CNN youtube channel  and a two minute video on the FOX youtube channel. Here is the Washington Post coverage which was decent, as they usually are.  The NY Times website had a tiny article in which they said "hundreds" marched (UPDATE: Rooftop video is here. So much for the NY Times "hundreds marched"). Hahahahaha. What they should have said was "hundreds from Miami marched" since there were several hundred from high schools in Miami, who'd come up.

11 pictures + one on steps of Supreme Court. You can see how the weather changed over a period of about 2 hours.

The Rally

The March up Constitution Ave. to the Supreme Court -

Two double strollers, and a third one out of view. 

There were a couple of dozen pro-abortion counter-protesters. The man's t shirt says "Abortion on Demand & Without Apology".

On the steps of the Supreme Court, women from Silent No More, speaking - very emotional, as always

Wanted to get this right out - more to follow.

 

Looks Great: Speaker's list for Friday DC March for Life

And it is on! Current forecast says less than one inch of snow in Washington during the March.

List of speakers includes one of our favorites, Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. And Matt Birk the Baltimore Raven player who didn't bother going to the White House for the standard Super Bowl winner visit to Obama. Hit the link to read about he and his family involvement in the pro-life movement. They live in Greenwich, CT.

March for Life - 2016

Carly Fiorina, Pro-Life Businesswoman
Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA)
Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ)
State Senator Katrina Jackson (D-LA)
Matt Birk; former Baltimore Ravens player and Super Bowl Champion
Sue Ellen Browder; Author, Subverted
Jim Daly; President, Focus on the Family
Marjorie Dannenfelser, President, Susan B. Anthony List
Dr. Marguerite Duane, MD; Cofounder and Executive Director, FACTS
Jewels Green; Silent No More campaign
Nathan Grime; Student, Concordia Lutheran High School
His Eminence Metropolitan Evangelos, Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops
Dr. Russell Moore, President, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission

March for Life - theme for 2016

We are excited to share with you our 2016 March for Life theme - 

"Pro-Life and Pro-Woman Go Hand in Hand!"

 

We are announcing the theme at the U.S. Capitol as we speak at a briefing we are hosting with pro-life and pro-woman friends and allies. Follow along on Twitter HERE.

Why this theme, why now?

Each year, we try to discern the most cutting edge and critical theme for the March for Life, as well as the area that needs the most education. 
 
It has been said -- politically and culturally -- that for one to be pro-woman one must be pro-choice. But nothing could be further from the truth. Sadly, there are so many confusing messages regarding women and the issue of abortion, compounded by the false “war on women” rhetoric. 

The truth is that life is the empowering choice for women. It's best for women and families facing unplanned pregnancies, and it's best for developing female babies in the womb. Abortion harms women, and affects our society as a whole, in so many ways.

Through our 2016 theme, "Pro-life and Pro-Woman Go Hand-in-Hand," we will explore this topic in many ways, and we will push back against the Planned Parenthood machine.

Follow the March for Life on social media for more resources, and continue to use our website as a resource.

You can also sign up for the March for Life Conference on January 21 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. to learn more about our theme. The Conference will be held at the Downtown D.C. Renaissance Hotel and will feature a keynote address by author Sue Ellen Browder, entitled: “Why the Pro-Life Movement Is the Authentic Women’s Movement.”

Together, we can impact our culture with this beautiful message of life. We will march together on January 22, 2016 to share this truth with the world. We cannot do it alone. Please invite your friends, family, and neighbors to be part of the 2016 March for Life!

We will see you in less than 3 months! Until then, join us in sharing the truth that being pro-life and pro-woman go hand in hand! For Life,



Jeanne F. Mancini
March for Life President

p.s. We are excited to share our 2016 March for Life theme with you - "Pro-Life and Pro-Woman Go Hand-in-Hand! For graphics to share on social media, click HERE.

March for Life defeats Obamacare abortion mandate

From the Washington Post - hit the link for the whole article.

This is a vital win, and the principle should be applied to other groups.

“It’s a case that is a little bit unique among the other cases,” Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), who represented March for Life, said at the time. “March for Life is not a religious organization. Their pro-life beliefs are based on science and ethics, but not faith.”

Now, a U.S. District Court has ruled that, like some like-minded religious groups, March for Life does not have to offer coverage for a service it doesn’t believe in.

“March for Life has been excised from the fold because it is not ‘religious,'” Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in his opinion. “This is nothing short of regulatory favoritism.”

He said the government had violated March for Life’s rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, which sets procedural standards for federal regulatory agencies.

“HHS provides no principled basis, other than the semantics of religious tolerance, for its distinction” between religious and secular objections, he wrote. “If the purpose of the religious employer exemption is, as HHS states, to respect the anti-abortifacient tenets of an employment relationship, then it makes no rational sense — indeed, no sense whatsoever — to deny March [for] Life that same respect.” (An abortifacient is a drug that causes abortion.)

******

With strong language and no shortage of exclamation points, Leon laid out the case that March for Life was due the same “equal protection” offered religious groups exempt from provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

The government contends that “March for Life is not ‘similarly situated’ to the exempted [religious] organizations because it ‘is not religious and is not a church,'” he wrote. “… This not only oversimplifies the issue — it misses the point entirely!”

Just because March for Life wasn’t making a faith-based argument, Leon said, didn’t mean it didn’t need protection. The Department of Health and Human Services had sought to accommodate groups with religious objections. Why shouldn’t it accommodate secular groups with the same convictions?

“The characteristic that warrants protection — an employment relationship based in part on a shared objection to abortifacients — is altogether separate from theism,” he wrote. “Stated differently, what HHS claims to be protecting is religious beliefs, when it actually is protecting a moral philosophy about the sanctity of life.”

 

March for Life 2015 - a blockbuster

UPDATE: Media blackout of March for Life - From the Catholic League

More people then ever (Marchers were still streaming past the Supreme Court at 4 o'clock), even less coverage then ever. NY Times had a picture relating to some Congressional measures to restrict federal funding of abortion and that was it.

The Washington Post had the following article & in the accompanying picture, well, we have a very similar picture of the same little girl, same sign, on her father's shoulders. Our picture below the Washington Post link.

“This march is part of a longer one, and our destination is clear: to secure and protect the rights of every unborn child. When there is disagreement, we should pause and listen closely. When there is movement, we should rejoice, and the House’s vote to ban taxpayer funding of abortion is cause for doing so,” he said.

Here's our picture of the little girl -

 

Notre Dame had 700 hundred student participants, plus faculty and staff, plus the university president - and South Bend is 607 miles from Washington DC. Their Pro-life club is the largest club on the Notre Dame campus.

Here's an excellent article on the ND participation as well as a robust explanation of the right to life movement, and why it's THE civil rights/human rights movement of our time.

Here Come the Irish: Notre Dame Marches for Life

Their impressive banner was toward the end of the long March.

 

Certainly one of the striking features was the very impressive number of young vowed religious and seminarians.

Nashville Dominicans

St. Charles Borromeo Seminarians -they told us almost 130 are attending the Seminary.

 Washington DC Dominican Studies - about 80 students -

Sign tells the Order

Lots of Franciscans

Of course, the Sisters of Life

Mother Agnes, speaks with a member of Pro-bikers for Life

 

Signs -

And ... all 'Dem people!

The St. Augustine's bus, from Ossining, NY

 

The always great shot, looking back down Constitution Ave.

 

 

 

At the top and turning the corner

And last picture - Youth!

Part of a large contingent of Belmont Abbey College students - a Benedictine school - who'd come up from North Carolina.

 

 

Video - The Washington March for Life, in the cold

From the Catholic News Service -

 

Roe vs Wade 41st Anniversary Marked in DC

                            

Hudson Valley Coalition for Life

Press Release

January 17, 2014

 

TO:   Westchester and Putnam County media – online, radio, television, newsprint             

 RE:  41^st March For Life - Wednesday, January 22, Washington, DC           

 

CC:Westchester and Putnam Right to Life Committee, No. Westchester & Putnam Center for Life, Right to Life Coalition of Lower Westchester, Westchester Right to Life Party, People for Life, Advocates of Life

 

              Abortion: The Acceptable Act of Violence

A high percentage of young marchers will again enthusiastically lead a hundred- thousand citizens to rally in Washington, D.C. at Noon on Wednesday, January 22, calling on President Barack Obama and Congress to end this nation’s most shameful legacy – the legal targeting and slaughtering of innocents in the womb.

Adults and students from the Westchester/Putnam area, including Ossining, Peekskill and Katonah, will join like-minded Americans from across the nation. “We will ask President Obama to put an end to the violence of abortion and its taxpayer funding now coerced through his administration’s health mandates,” says Hudson Valley Coalition for Life spokeswoman Brigid Faranda. “While Planned Parenthood becomes the largest abortion provider in our country with over 300,000 abortions executed yearly, life affirming solutions and choices like adoption and pregnancy care centers are being targeted and under-funded, safe haven laws under-reported, and basic safeguards for women increasingly phased out,” says Ms. Faranda.

For example in New York the abortion capitol, Governor Cuomo wants to expand abortion through the 9th month of pregnancy via point 10 of a so-called Women’s Equality Act that simultaneously lowers safety protections for women! Now, along with demands for even more abortions, comes an increasingly coarse, violent, sexual culture aimed at younger and younger children. Fifty-five million human beings have been eradicated, not by guns or bullying, but burned with saline, surgically dismembered, or chemically poisoned in the womb. Silence is unacceptable!

For information or interviews call Brigid Faranda’s cell at 914.329.5654 or

Judith Anderson’s at 914.329.5163

####

 

High Energy Youth and Record Numbers Mark 40th March for Life in D.C.

The frigid temperatures didn't phase pilgrims, young or old, to the January 25th March for Life in Washington, D.C. This, the 40th year since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion on demand in America.

The March for Life theme: 40=55M - forty years equals 55 million unborn deaths - a tragic statistic that doesn't offend a good portion of our citizenry, so embeded in our culture is abortion's violence against children. Every life is of infinite worth. While everyone jumps on national gun control as a solution to the terribly tragic 26 deaths in Connecticut, our increasingly violence-saturated society gives us 55 million dead children in the womb since Roe. Our acceptance of immoral "choices"; voters content to view foundational and Constitutional issues facing our country in increasingly superficial ways; and a majority of the media so lacking in curiosity or concern about abortion's ugly realities that America's cherished "Fourth Estate" seems little more than a quaint memory and American ideal fading fast.

Here are the stalwart travelers from our Hudson Valley Coalition for Life and Holy Name of Mary bus that included attendees from St. Teresa of Avila in Sleepy Hollow, Ossining, and Scarborough. The weather kept about twelve home who had booked passage, and we hope to see them next year!

Brigid Faranda, seen here with Fr. Fidelis of the CFR's will be your guide through D.C. and these pics:

Heading the March for Life since founder Nellie Gray's passing last year is Jeanne Monahan, shown here along with the next two pictures, up on the Diamondvision screen at the podium:

Sen. Rick Santorum spoke at the Rally. Here with his family, he spoke of daughter Bella who, though born with birth deflects, enriches their lives:

France and Italy's among the many banners on display:

 Sacred Heart Academy, part of the large Chicago contingent and one of the most imaginative and colorful witnesses:

1:30 p.m. - The March begins!

This 40th year had the Genocide Awareness Project, as in years past, as well as the new Created Equal project.

Created Equal's graphic truths:

That's Brigid in foreground as Capitol police cycle ahead of the March:

A Supreme Court view of peaceful protestors. Remember the unnecessary "riot gear" years?!

Digna Coronel (with Brigid below), busy taking great pictures of her own, met a woman participating from Indiana who knew Brigid, going back to their prolife activism in Dobbs Ferry - what are the odds! 

Women and men of Silent No More were very strong in numbers. God bless them! Theresa Bonopartis of Lumina reminds us that for them and for us abortion is more than politics; it's about healing and reconciling with their God and their unborn children:

Father Frank Pavone (left) introduces the courageous Silent No More witnesses at the Court steps:

The Sisters of Life wouldn't be anywhere else!

Some got their Irish up:

Snow began falling about 3 p.m. at the Courthouse:

 

Some members of the group lobbied, while others warmed up in the Hart Building:

The contingent from Yale, and from Harvard ...

We thank God for so many prayers for a safe journey to and from the March!

Must see - Great prolife interview on MSNBC!

First published on Lifenews.com. Leaning Forward But Knocked Back: Pro-Lifer Rocks MSNBC Interview

The reporter is Craig Melvin, , who is much fairer than the typical MSNBC ideologue.

 

Created Equal Project quick video from the March for Life

HVCL press release for March for Life, January 25th

This has been sent to the media:

Hudson Valley Coalition for Life

Box 494

Ossining, NY 10562    

e-mail [email protected]

Press Release

January 17, 2013

TO:         Westchester and Putnam County media – online, radio, television, newsprint      

RE:         40th March For Life - Friday, January 25 - Washington, DC

CC:          Westchester and Putnam Right to Life Committee, No. Westchester & Putnam Center for Life, Right to Life Coalition of Lower Westchester, Westchester Right to Life Party, People for Life, Advocates of Life

Slaughtering Innocents for 40 Years

Hundreds of thousands of citizens, mostly young, will gather in D.C. at Noon on Friday, January 25, to draw attention to this nation’s most shameful of generational legacies – the massive targeting of and slaughtering of innocents in the womb through abortion.

This year’s witness on the 40thth anniversary of Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion will challenge our highest Court, the Congress, our citizens, and America’s most pro-abortion President, Barack Obama, just days after his second inaugural address. 

Two generations have grown up thinking that the intentional killing of children in the womb is an acceptable solution to an unintended pregnancy, and one with no personal or societal consequences. Yet we look at society today and are shocked to see an increasingly sick and violent culture aimed directly at its children. As we rightly grieve over the massacre of twenty seven-year-olds in Connecticut, we refuse to connect the 55 million children that have been killed in the womb through the violence of abortion. No guns here, only fetal children burned with saline, surgically dismembered, or chemically poisoned by the thousands daily.

Adults and students from the Westchester/Putnam area will join Americans from across the nation. “We are going to remind President Obama who is begging for an end to gun violence that we should not be paying for or promoting the violence of abortion in any new “health” plan. We want taxpayer funding of abortion ended,” states Hudson Valley Coalition for Life spokeswoman Brigid Faranda. “Planned Parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in our country, with over 300,000 performed on children in the womb each year. Polls indicate that the majority of Americans are in agreement with pro-life solutions and basic safeguards for women,” said Mrs. Faranda. “We will not tolerate the violence against our children or the further breakdown of our society.”

For information or interviews call Brigid Faranda’s cell at 914.329.5654 or Judith Anderson’s at 914.329.5163

####

Fr. Frank Pavone's USA Today op ed comparing Helen Gurley Brown and Nellie Gray

An important column and only 11 paragraphs. As Fr. writes, they encapuslate two divergent world views.

Who will be remembered in 100 years?

Two women whose worldviews couldn't have been more divergent died just days apart, each leaving a dramatically different imprint on American society. Both sought to protect women's rights but were on opposite sides of a cultural battle that has shaped the past half-century. In the Civil War, the two sides were symbolized by "The Blue" and "The Gray." The sides in today's "civil war" could be symbolized by "The Brown" and "The Gray."

Helen Gurley Brown, writer of Sex and The Single Girl and for 32 years
the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, was in the vanguard of a movement
that insisted women would only achieve equality through "reproductive rights."
What that meant was that women should be free to sleep with whomever they
desired with the inevitable consequence of aborting unplanned children conceived
along the way.

Nellie Gray, a lawyer who walked away from a successful
career to found the March for Life, had a starkly different view of
women's rights. To Gray, human rights could not be broken down to their
component parts. Everyone enjoyed the same right to life bestowed by the creator
and guaranteed by the Constitution. Abortion both broke her heart and steeled
her resolve.

Both stood for human rights

The difference between "The Brown" and "The Gray," was not,
however, what many would say it was, namely, that "The Brown" stands for the
women and "The Gray" stands for the babies. The real difference is that "The
Brown" thinks you can separate the two and "The Gray" says you can't. Both
claimed they were serving women.

Brown, and the movement she represented, believed that
women are served by more access to "services" such as abortion, which frees them
from the burden of carrying and raising a child.

Gray, and the movement she represented, believed that you
can stand both for women and for the children in their wombs, and that their
destinies are intertwined: Loving and serving either means loving and serving
both.

Hit the link for the complete op ed.

 

March for Life 2012 - the "All Men are Created Equal" video

This is the first time we had seen this - it was on a large screen at the point where Constitution Ave. veers slightly to the left, before you start going uphill. Everyone in the March would see it. Oh, so true!

The website is www.createdequal.net and the full video was 3:39 in length. Only part is shown below.

 

Last look at the signs, posters, banners, at the Washington March for Life

Really just a small selection, from the thousands of possibilities at the March. It starts with a group shot with some of the people from the two buses that made stops from Croton to Tarrytown, NY.

Then 50(!) more, mostly of signs, with only a few crowd shots sprinkled in - so one picture for (almost) every day of the week .

And the rest, with very little commentary.

Randall Terry, who plans on running in Democratic Presidential primaries against President Obama, allowing him to show ads of what happens in an abortion. Media stations cannot turn down election ads!

Bus #1 - 2011 March for Life snapshots

Here Member of Congress Ann Marie Buerkle from NY's 25th District greets Ed Riely and Rich Fuerst from our New York contingent at the end of our day in D.C.

We were given coffee and cookies (!) and had a fifteen-minute sit down chat with this Congressional Representative who was actually in Washington to geet us. She spoke at the Rally and she is a thirty-year Right-to-Lifer. Oh, how those winds change in our Nation's capital! We also stopped in Congresswoman Nan Hayworth's 19th District office, but she was in the home District that day.

But let's begin at the beginning...

Our March for Life Monday saw single-digit temps as we stepped onto our equally chilly bus at 6 a.m. in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. We picked up riders in Briarcliff Manor and Ossining before meeting our second bus in Sleepy Hollow at St. Teresa of Avila's Church. Sister Mary Ann Maceda never disappoints with her families and students, and we had a total of over 60 "pilgrims for life" heading to Washington, D.C.!

We admired the Capitol building and the Knights of Colombus banner as we mingled with some of the soon-to-be hundreds of thousands of marchers near the Rally site.

The camera caught a weird glimpse of the Washington Monument with a street lamp and the ubiquitous Sabrett's hot dog stand in the foregreound reminding us that D.C. is a town for the humble and mighty, and too often and sadly...a place where the mighty are humbled.

Many marchers headed out before the "official" beginning banner below

It was again youth on parade!

Joe Faranda, below in green NY Archdiocese scarf, turns to check out the size of the crowd

Joe Costanzo, Rich Fuerst and Pat Bane (below) show their best Croton NY smiles

"We the people" march! Children's yellow sweatshirts say "I survived Roe vs. Wade"

Pat Bane asked clueless Judy (above) about her choice of warm headgear!!!!

The long shot (below) gives greater perspective on the overall size of the March

Cornell University for Life and New Castle, PA are on the march below. We saw signs from Canada, Michigan and Tampa, Florida just to name a few.

The young and old marched side by side (above) for the cause of life, while an interesting question is posed below

 

The Lord watches over us and we are reminded by this gentleman that the road is not an easy one.

Bright blue skies, an impressive Court House, and a plea for prayers below.

Equal Justice for All...?

40 Days for Life's banner in front of the Supreme Court.

The Library of Congress facade includes faces and poses, real and sculpted.

No one seems to be going in the direction the General is pointing at pick up point, Stanton Park, but everyone found their way back to our bus and we left D.C. at 4:20 p.m. - record time!

Bus #1 driver Sal smiles for us as we leave NY - He was smiling when we returned home, too!

What a great day! Holy Name of Mary and the Hudson Valley Coalition for Life sponsored two buses. Judy reports here. Watch for Tom's posting next!

 

 

 

From the Franciscan Friars: TimeLapse March for Life

Pretty cool! 91 minutes, compressed down to one minute. And note that the video is taken at one of the very widest points on the March.

It's worth noting that the March for life has at least doubled in size since the mid-nineties, when it took only 46 - 48 minutes and measured at a narrower spot on Constitution Ave.

 

Dr. J: "Marching on the Right Side of History"

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute has a fine posting on her blog:

Defenders of marriage should draw hope and courage from the pro-life movement’s success. As an advocate of conjugal marriage, I am often told that I am on the “wrong side of History.” The justice of “marriage equality” is overwhelming; the younger generation favors it; same sex marriage is inevitable. But this analysis is false. Indeed, there is ample reason to think that the March of History storyline will be proven incorrect. The reason? We were told all these same things about abortion.

A funny thing happened on the way to History: the people did not perform as promised. Last year, I took a group of Ruth Institute students up to the West Coast Walk for Life in San Francisco. Official estimates place the attendance at over 35,000. But I wasn’t counting. I was looking at the faces. I saw what anyone can see, if they care to look: the pro-life movement is a youth movement.

Hit the link above to read the whole, fine essay.

Media coverage of yesterday's March for Life

This of course is only a partial listing. We will have our own photos and impressions posted in a few days.

The NY Times paper addition had NO coverage we could find. However - their online edition did have a slide show (eight slides) which was quite good.

Despite Cold Weather, Abortion Opponents Rally in Washington

The usually awful "On Faith" section of the Washington Post had a good article and another slide show in the online edition. They pointed out that 27,000 youth attended the Washington DC Masses on Saturday, January 22nd, commemorating the actual date of Roe vs. Wade.

Thousands of abortion opponents rally in march on Mall

Here's FOX News coverage - a video - mostly on the politics of the issue. They give an estimate of 100-200,000 participants and the results of national polling data showing a 50/42 split for prolife vs. prochoice. A good two and a half minute video, with a short commercial at the beginning.

Pro-life Activists Sense Shift in Momentum

Michelle Malkin had very good coverage on her blog -

The March for Life 2011: America’s REAL rally to restore hope and sanity

Her posting includes the following quote, from the opening invocation, given by an African-American minister, as well as a television screen shot:

Washington DC – Pastor Luke Quinn, Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Frederick MD, asks: “Where is President Obama? Where is Jesse Jackson? Where is Al Sharpton?”