For decades, people from all over the country bundled up and boarded buses to march in the annual March for Life held on Jan. 19, to pray for an end to abortion and to lobby lawmakers to sponsor legislation that supported the unborn and the expecting rather than abortifacients and abortion providers. With the historic overturning of decades-old policy by the Supreme Court on June 24, 2022, the state has become the primary battlefield for the protection of the unborn.
Jan. 19 is still marked by marches, prayers, speeches and lobbying because, Supreme Court ruling or no, the struggle to create a society where abortion becomes unthinkable requires ongoing efforts, energy and attention. In addition to that day, we need to make June 24 a day when we show the world what it fully means to be pro-life.
We should march in our local communities and state capitals that day. Booths should be set up along the way with information on crisis pregnancy centers, Project Rachel, Project Gabriel, adoption agencies, support systems for expecting mothers and for women in danger, for Head Start, for WIC, for all the services that help young, expectant and struggling mothers need.
We should make it a day of charity and charity awareness, so the world can know, there is room in the inn and our doors and hearts are open. It should be a day when everyone who gathers brings diapers or formula or gift cards, strollers or car seats or cribs. The day should highlight people like the Sisters of Life, who have modeled for decades the witness of accompaniment.
‘Unexpected joy and real community’
Our goal should be to illustrate why abortion no longer has to be considered, why there are so many supports beyond what one might learn from a quick Google search. We should create and constantly update a website that connects women in need of help with their pregnancy to the resources that their local community offers. The counter to Planned Parenthood is unexpected joy and real community.
Mass should be, of course, part of the day, and perhaps baptisms for those who bring their young ones to the Mass. People could remind local organizations like schools and hospitals, health care centers and charities that there is support and it isn’t theoretical or in development; it’s here today and it’s real, like grace, like the Eucharist.
Accepting life in imitation of Christ
“This is my body, given up for you.” Christ tells us through the priest at every Mass. Every woman who accepts children is imitating Christ by her sacrifice. Every parent who loves a child is imitating Christ by his or her sacrifice from that moment forward. Every volunteer who surrenders time to accompany and be present is likewise a Simon, helping the expectant woman to bear the burden of pregnancy and all it entails, and a Joseph, providing shelter and support for the woman who carries an innocent child in her womb.
At the end of the day, everyone should gather (if in Washington, on the Mall), each with a luminous (L.E.D) rose to illustrate all the lives saved by the ruling so that the world can see how much lighter and brighter our lives are by their presence. These vigils should also be held in every town and state capital where there are people who believe that we should work to make abortion unthinkable, and make the witness of life, of prayer and of sacrifice, service and accompaniment visible to all.
All would then know who we follow by our love; they would know how much we value life by our willingness to lay down part of our own for others. they would know what it means to be pro-life.
