The march is held on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which legalized abortion in 1973. This year will mark the 41st year of legalized abortion.
“This is my fourth March for Life in a row,” said Joe Connors, a member of Southern Downriver Right to Life, which is an affiliate of Right to Life of Michigan. “It’s a great opportunity for Americans and especially young Americans to petition their government to change what is wrong.”
He added that the march is “a great uplifting experience to see hundreds of thousands of fellow pro-lifers together. The kids are the future of the movement.”
Having helped organize one of the many groups of adults and young people from the Metro Detroit area, Connors said one of the most fascinating aspects of the march is the youth rally at D.C.’s Verizon Center.
“They have the rosary, Mass, and 15,000 kids in the building,” he said. “And I’ve never seen that many extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion in my life.”
Never backing down
Monica Miller, founder and director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, said she is heartened by the significant progress the pro-life movement made in 2013, especially of 87 abortion clinics closing across the country, several in Michigan.
“Many states passed important life-saving legislation, notable the 13 states that put in place 20-week pain-capable abortion bans,” she said. Polls have even indicated the public increasingly opposes abortion on demand, Miller added.
“But we cannot ever be complacent, when each day over 3,000 innocent lives will be put to death though legalized abortion,” Miller said. “We can never learn to live with such injustice — and the temptation is that, since legalized abortion has been with us now for more than 40 years, we will simply learn to live with it.”
She said it’s wrong to act as though legalized abortion is normal, and that people must look beyond the “lie of normalcy that cloaks the injustice of abortion,” recommitting themselves to ending the killing of the unborn.
Spreading the message tangibly
Debbie Bloomfield, a member of Upper Downriver Right to Life — another affiliate of Right to Life of Michigan — said the many tangible ways to promote the respect life message in 2013 have made great strides.
“People from Downriver are going farther to pray at abortion mills because the closest ones have closed over the past few years,” she said. “We had a wonderful pro-life Christmas card design contest … we had a wonderful response to our dinner in October for Right to Life of Michigan’s education fund.”
The group is also planning to light luminary candles Jan. 22 “in memory of all the babies who have been killed, and all the mothers who have been victims.”
Daniel Goodnow, president of Helpers of God’s Precious Infants of Michigan, said the nonprofit’s sidewalk counseling approach outside of abortion clinics focuses on being loving to the mothers.
“When a woman approaches the parking lot, we begin counseling before she gets to the sidewalk,” he explained, because they often have little time before she enters the clinic. “We introduce ourselves, explain that we understand they have real problems, but warning that if you take baby out, that doesn’t get rid of the problem.”
The Helpers often refer the women to nearby crisis pregnancy centers that can provide further counseling, maternity clothes and financial help if needed.
Helpers of God’s Precious Infants was founded in 1990 by Msgr. Philip Reilly in New York, Goodnow said, but it has branched out across the nation since.
The Michigan chapter was started in 2000, and Goodnow, who knows and has worked with Msgr. Reilly, estimates more than 11,000 women have changed their minds and chosen life since then.
“My spiritual director told me to attend Eucharistic adoration every day as long as I am doing this,” said Goodnow, who has been organizing the group’s prayer vigils nearly full-time since he retired several years ago.
Helpers always invite new participants to attend prayer vigils outside the clinics, but if someone doesn’t feel called to be there physically, a prayer confraternity also offers daily and weekly support.
“Everyone should be praying for the end to abortion,” he said.
Opting out of abortion
The Michigan Senate and House of Representatives passed the citizen-initiated Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Act in December, which ensured that health plans offered on Michigan’s state exchange will not include insurance coverage for an elective procedure that destroys an unborn child.
David Maluchnik, director of communications for the Michigan Catholic Conference — the official public policy voice of the Catholic Church in Michigan — applauded the state’s move toward a greater respect for unborn life in Michigan.
“Right to Life of Michigan spearheaded this initiative, which brought well over 300,000 signatures from Michigan citizens,” he said. “It was more than enough signatures to put before the Michigan Senate and the House of Representatives.”
He explained that Michigan, having passed the act, is the 24th state to opt out of including elective abortions in the state health care exchange.
Maluchnik said the action was “quite a salient point” making sure that “Michigan maintains its history of not using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion policies.”
