Protesters \u2014 drawn by social media and church youth groups \u2014 flocked to the annual March for Life despite subfreezing temperatures.<\/p>\n
This is Monahan’s first year leading the march and she made major changes to appeal to a younger audience. “We shortened the program from longer than two hours to an hour, picked speakers who are more engaging and we are deeply engaging social media.”<\/p>\n
Leaders Chime in<\/h3>\n As one abortion opponent after another addressed the crowd, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., drew the loudest applause with an attack on the court ruling: \u201cForty years ago this past Tuesday marks the Supreme Court\u2019s infamous, reckless and inhumane abandonment of women and babies to the abortionists.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKnow this, Mr. President \u2014 we will never quit,\u201d Smith said before the marchers took off on their route down Constitution Avenue toward the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n
House Speaker John Boehner roused the crowd when he said: \u201cBecause human life is not an economic or political commodity … no government on Earth has the right to treat it as such.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pope Benedict XVI sent them his encouragement by Twitter: \u201cI join all those marching for life from afar, and pray that political leaders will protect the unborn and promote a culture of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Personal stories<\/h3>\n Anina Lund, 14, Monica Dewey, 15, and Monica\u2019s brother Jackson, 12, came from West Chester, N.Y., with a group from St. Anne\u2019s Church. Both girls spoke of how their families faced abortion decisions.<\/p>\n
Monica, one of 10 children, recalled: \u201cMy younger brother was very sick in the womb and the doctors told my mom to abort the baby, but she chose not to. He is here today, and he is perfectly healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anina had a similar story: \u201cI had a little sister who was going to be aborted because she was premature. But now she is 7, and she is perfect. This march gave my mom so much support.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘Where is the outrage?’<\/h3>\n Kathleen Cranford, 61, of Slidell, La., came to the march Friday with her husband, Clay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve wanted to attend all my life, and now I am here \u2014 it\u2019s a dream come true,\u201d she said. As disturbed as Americans are by the killings in Newtown, Conn., she said, abortion has killed millions more: \u201cWhere is the outrage?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of thousands of people thronged the United States’ National Mall on Friday to protest abortion and call for overturning the 40-year-old landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[19,20,171,163],"class_list":["post-30727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-health","tag-medicine","tag-religion-2","tag-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}