The dark clouds, the cold wind and the intermittent rain that fell in Lansing on Wednesday morning, November 8th, seemed to symbolize that sadness that the pro-life movement has today over advances in abortion thanks to yesterday’s elections. One marcher said, “It’s God crying.”
Yet some 4500 marchers from throughout Michigan exhibited the indomitable spirit that has characterized the pro-life movement for over five decades. And I was privileged to join them.
The March took place on the one-year anniversary of “Proposal 3,” the extreme abortion amendment that was adopted into the Michigan Constitution, declaring that abortion is a right, despite the fact that at no time in American history has any state constitution ever asserted this “right.”
The March also took place the day after the Michigan legislature passed the “Reproductive Health Act,” which would bring various provisions of Proposal 3 into statutory law. It is headed to the pro-abortion Governor for her signature.
About two dozen legislators stood before the rally on the steps of the Capitol, pointing out the extremism of the Democrats – for instance, this new legislation removes the reasonable health and safety standards to which Michigan law holds abortion clinics. The Act also rescinds the partial-birth abortion ban in the state.
But thanks in part to the hesitation of even some Democrat lawmakers to be so extreme, the bill leaves intact the protection of Medicaid money from funding abortion, as well as parental consent legislation and some other pro-life provisions.
One legislator reminded the crowd of how the abortion extremism of Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Democrat Party led her to veto a bill that would have provided 20 million dollars to fund abortion alternatives across the state.
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As a symbol of that help, dozens of men and women who work in pregnancy centers and medical clinics across Michigan also took to the steps of the Capitol around the podium and received the encouragement of the thousands of marchers in attendance.
One of the most exciting moments of the March was when Barbara Listing, President of Right to Life of Michigan, announced that attorney Robert Muise of the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed today a federal lawsuit against Michigan’s pro-abortion Proposal 3.
(AFLC defends the Constitutional rights of multiple pro-life groups and activists nationwide, including Priests for Life.)
The federal lawsuit claims, among other things, that because Proposal 3 precludes legal protection from the harm abortion brings, women who undergo the procedure are denied the equal protection of the law that the US Constitution secures.
The crowd reacted with excitement at this announcement, feeling that together, as a movement that has suffered the grief of this proposal for a year now, they now have yet another way of pushing back against it.
If successful, of course, this lawsuit could encourage similar challenges elsewhere, such as in Ohio.
The Michigan March for Life exhibited a strong presence of young people who gathered under the banners of their respective schools.
Likewise marching were many long-time veterans of the pro-life movement, whose age and wisdom remind them that the pro-life movement has always been a story of ups and downs, of days of sunshine and days of dark clouds – but that in the end, the victory belongs to Life.
LifeNews.com Note: Frank Pavone is the national director for Priests for Life.
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