5 notable moments at March for Life 2020

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Saturday, January 25, 2020

Students from the University of Mary march during the 2020 March for Life in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 24, 2020. | The Christian Post

The young pro-life generation continued to march in droves

For years, pro-life advocates have said that young people are the “pro-life generation.” The 2020 march was attended by countless high school and college students. Some came with their parents, churches and schools while some came with their friends.

“Every year despite subzero temperatures, the March for Life gets bigger and younger,” March for Life President Jeanne Mancini said at the rally.

”[O]ur marchers are full of passion and full of love and they are young,” she added. “We are America’s future. We want to make abortion unthinkable.”

Chandler Bale, a high school senior from Portland, Tennesee, told The Christian Post that this was the first year he attended the march. He said he was inspired to come after hearing conservative commenter Ben Shapiro speak about it last year.

“The process of abortion is a big thing for me, how it happens,” Bale said. “The surgical procedure of it and hearing abortion doctors talk about it. I don’t understand how that is something that you can allow to happen. It’s disgusting.”

As hundreds of thousands of abortions are performed each year, Bale said “something needs to be done.”

“I think people should be able to see what is bad and good,” he said. “I think people can see that today. This is something that needs to be fixed.”

Many students from Catholic colleges marched. This included four busloads of students from the University of Mary in North Dakota. The University of Mary students marched together as they sang hymns in unison.

University of Mary junior Elias Haddad told CP that it was his third time at the March for Life.

“There is something special about our students that go to school there,” he said. “They recognize and are committed to their faith. Part of that does entail bringing the good news out of the world and proclaiming what is right and wrong. People from Mary who come here to participate come here to see an end to abortion.”

“It didn’t start with our generation though,” Haddad added. “I think the greatest call that I have heard is from Pope John Paul II during World Youth Day in Colorado [in 1993] where he asked us to be a witness to the dignity and sanctity of all human life, especially the unborn.”

About 200 students from the interdenominational Colorado Christian University flew in to attend the march.

For CCU student Samantha Oldfather, this was her second year to attend the march.

“It has radically changed my life. A year ago, I was wondering whether I was pro-choice or pro-life, but the 2019 march transformed my view of the value of the womb,” Oldfather wrote in a statement shared with CP. “I believe that I was pro-choice because I did not fully understand the science that life starts from the moment of conception. As a Christian, my faith also tells me life begins way before birth.”

The March for Life banner, the banner held by those in the front of the march, was held by students from Oakcrest School in Vienna, Virginia.

Catalina Scheider Galinanes, a 16-year-old who serves as the president of Oakcrest’s Respect Life Club, addressed the crowd at the rally. She explained that she was participating in her seventh March for Life.

“We know that every aborted child is a unique person, a person with human dignity, a person created in the image and likeness of God, a person our world is tragically missing,” she said.

“From the moment I realized that the abortion industry was ending the lives of millions of babies and lying to women everywhere, I knew God was calling me and each us to act to defend human dignity and protect the lives of generations to come. That is what we are doing here today.”