Hundreds brave cold conditions to pray for an end to abortion
Lucas Jirgal, left, and his sister, Anna, standing behind her sign, hold posters that show the number of babies who died in abortions in 2006 and question how many will die this year. They participated in the Right to Life of Indianapolis Memorial Service for the Unborn on Jan. 28 in Indianapolis. They are members of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Carmel, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese.
By Mary Ann Wyand
Marian College senior Laura Elstro proudly wears a small, gold “baby feet” pro-life pin on the front of her pink stocking cap.
Elstro was among several hundred pro-life supporters who braved extremely cold weather on Jan. 28 to pray for an end to abortion during an ecumenical memorial service at the Indiana War Memorial in downtown Indianapolis.
Right to Life of Indianapolis sponsored the Memorial Service for the Unborn and a memorial walk to Monument Circle in Indianapolis as a local response to the national March for Life held on Jan. 22 in Washington, D.C.
Both events solemnly commemorate and peacefully protest the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions that legalized abortion during all nine months of pregnancy.
A member of St. Andrew Parish in Richmond, Elstro has participated in the March for Life six times during her high school and college years.
“I plan on going [to the national march] until it’s not necessary,” she said after the memorial service. “And I plan on coming to this until it’s not necessary.”
Elstro is a member of the pro-life club at the Franciscan college in Indianapolis, and wears her hat “all the time for the babies.”
The words “Marian College” and “Humanae Vitae” are stitched on her cap to remind people of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, “Of Human Life,” which was promulgated on July 25, 1968.
“As I looked around at the memorial service, there were people in tears,” she said. “My reaction was very emotional, too. Another moment that really touched my heart was when [a] young pregnant mother brought up a rose for 2007. That really makes you think about how so many babies have already been aborted this year. It’s already in the thousands, and it’s only January.”
Archdiocesan seminarian Aaron Thomas, also a member of St. Andrew Parish in Richmond, was among three Catholic speakers at the prayer service.
Thomas is studying for the priesthood at the Bishop Simon Bruté College Seminary at Marian College.
“This year’s March for Life was marked by youthful determination and youthful exuberance,” Thomas told the gathering.
“This year’s march showed that hope for the future is indeed unfolding,” he said. “… First, hearts must change and then laws can change. … Thanks to the perseverance of all those who work in pro-life, we are seeing that change. In the not-so-distance future, we will see the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”
Fathers William Munshower and Donald Schmidlin, retired diocesan priests, offered prayers for life during the ecumenical service.
“God is love, and those who live in love live in God and God in them,” Father Munshower said. “… We know that we pass from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love remains in death.”
Women experiencing crisis pregnancies need ongoing love and support to choose life, said the chaplain at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis.
“By carrying her baby, she’s doing the loving thing,” Father Munshower said. “By carrying her baby, she’s doing the compassionate thing. By carrying her baby, she’s doing the courageous thing. … We support her loving commitment, compassion, courage and far-sightedness … with a humble, persistent, generous attitude which witnesses, encourages and welcomes.
“Our position on this issue may be the single most important means of bringing our nation back to moral sensitivity on many other fronts,” he said, including assisting the poor and vulnerable, advocating for health care for the neediest among us and helping offenders return to society following their incarceration.
Father Schmidlin noted that life is a precious gift that God has entrusted to us to guard, nurture and hold dear.
“With sadness and contrition, we acknowledge that we human beings do not always respect the gift of life,” he said. “So often, it is squandered and wasted by violence, a violence which so many inflict on the most innocent of all—those not yet given a chance to be born.”
He asked God to “convert hearts and minds to see your loving plan for all human life, help women who are pregnant to choose life for their unborn child, help men to repent of the actions that caused the pregnancy to be unwanted, help legislators and judges to enact and interpret the laws of our country to protect the choice for life, … and help us find ways to educate for sexual morality and responsibility to further the appreciation of marital sexual love as a beautiful and precious gift.” †
