Standing with other members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said he attended the first March for Life as the leader of a college pro-life organization.
“Countless times we chanted the slogan, ‘Hey, hey, ho, ho, Roe versus Wade has got to go,’ and today we celebrate – Roe is gone,” he told the crowd.
“The United States and the world must recognize the breathtaking miracle of the newly created life of an unborn child and that women deserve better than abortion,” Smith said. “We need to care for them both.”
The House is expected to vote soon on his legislation, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, Smith said. The legislation would bar federal funding of abortion.
The March for Life changed its route this year in acknowledgement of the post-Roe, political reality. Instead of marching straight to the Supreme Court building, participants passed the Capitol on the House side on the way in recognizing Congress’ important role of regulating abortion at the federal level.
Rep. Trenee’ McGee – an African-American Democrat in the Connecticut legislature – commended black pro-life women and said of what she described as the “systematically racist abortion industry:”
“You’ve mocked impoverished communities all while putting clinics in them. You’ve told me I can’t be black and pro-life because black women need abortion more than anyone.”
Former National Football League coach Tony Dungy and his wife Lauren encouraged the crowd to continue in the pro-life cause. The Dungys have 11 children, eight by adoption.
As an adoptive mother, Lauren Dungy said she is “so grateful for these birth moms who chose life rather than abortion. They’ll never know what a blessing it is to have these children in our life.”
In the post-Roe era, “we have to pray that we will have enough adoptive families to care for these precious lives,” she said.
Jonathan Roumie, the actor who portrays Jesus in the television series “The Chosen,” said at the rally, “History has been made. Life has triumphed in a miraculous way.”
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After reading from Psalm 139 about David’s testimony of God’s sovereign care for him in the womb, Roumie said, “Having lived under a grim cloud of darkness for the last 50 years, the world has once again been given a glimmer of hope. And I pray that with this recent step in protecting life, despite the grievous nature of what we’ve allowed, that God might still look upon us in His infinite mercy and see the hearts of those of us here in support of life today and say to us in this hour, ‘It is good.’ And it is good, but it is far from finished.”
In the closing prayer, evangelist and Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham prayed “for the millions of women who feel that they have no hope, that they’re condemned because they had an abortion. Father, my prayer is for these millions of women that they will come to know that You love them and care for them and that You will forgive them of their sin if they would repent and believe on the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ.”
March for Life intends to expand the number of marches in states, Mancini told the crowd. Marches will be held in 10 states this year, and the plan is to hold marches in all 50 states in the next five to seven years, she said.
This article originally appeared at Baptist Press.
