After 35 years of legalized abortion in the United States, numerous court rulings entrenching and expanding the right, and the practice?s de facto grafting with the larger culture due, in part, to its 40 million-plus occurrences, multitudes still march annually against the abortion-legalizing Roe v. Wade decision.
This Tuesday’s anniversary of the 1973 ruling ? based controversially on Constitutional privacy rights ? an estimated 50,000 to 100,000, mostly faith-driven activists will march from the National Mall to the Supreme Court to support “life principles” that include the passage of a Constitutional Amendment protecting life in the womb.
“This is an extremely important time ? the 35th year of the genocide of the pre-born from Roe v. Wade in America,” Nellie Gray, the march?s president said. “We have a genocide because, after 35 years, it?s estimated that 48 million pre-born children have been killed ? their mothers and fathers abused and hurt through this killing.”
“So we?re coming together at the nation?s capital once more to petition Congress to enact legislation to stop the genocide here,” Gray added.
Gray, a Washington, D.C. attorney and march ramrod since its inception in 1974, hopes the event ? a magnet for sympathetic congregations throughout the country ? will unify adherents behind the convictions that human life begins at fertilization and that “born and pre-born human beings have an inalienable right to life equal to one another.”
Gray noted that an assortment of like-minded clerics, movement leaders, and politicians ? including President Bush, in a telephone hook-up ? will address participants at a Mall assembly prior to the march?s 11:30 a.m. kick-off.
“NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland is very happy to be celebrating the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade,” countered Ariana Kelly, the abortion rights-promoting organization?s executive director. “We think that Roe v. Wade provides women with access to safe, legal abortions ? and that is very important.”
Kelly said her organization would honor the anniversary with a downtown rally at the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse.
“As we celebrate 35 years of safe, legal abortion care we must remain vigilant in preserving this freedom so that we never have to return to the days of back-alley abortions,” added Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore said about 2,500 parishioners would participate in Tuesday?s march, but the Presbytery of Baltimore, which has “voted to support reproductive choice,” according to Presbytery Executive Peter K. Nord, would not endorse the march.
