Leaving the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul after the Jan. 22 Prayer Service for Life with her 6-month-old daughter and 2-year-old son in a stroller, Kaleisha Adamson said she attended because she wanted others to realize the blessing and privilege of having children.
“I actually have found that my life truly began after I’ve had children and it’s been such a blessing,” said Adamson, who with her husband, Matt, and three of their children, participated in the service led by Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Williams. More than 2,000 people were in the congregation.
Afterward, the parishioners of St. Vincent de Paul in Brooklyn Park joined others taking part in the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) March for Life at the Minnesota State Capitol.
Sharing that she’d had an abortion about 10 years ago, Kaleisha Adamson said she’s since had a change of heart.
“I believed a lot of the lies that are out there about abortion and especially Planned Parenthood,” she said.
But now, she said, she believes that everyone deserves a chance to live.
“I believe that life begins at conception, and I believe that allowing a baby to live is a right, and I believe that abortion is wrong.”
Matt Adamson said he wanted his family to be seen as pro-life, as he took several signs from his car to carry on the march. “I want to be a part; I want to be counted among this number,” he said.
God’s chosen people have been distinguished as believers going back to the Old Testament, by the fact that God forbade them from killing their own children, Bishop Williams said during the prayer service, at which the St. John Paul II Champions for Life were recognized.
“You don’t throw away the life that God himself has knitted together in the womb,” Bishop Williams said. “So it was for the Christians” from the earliest centuries, he said, encouraging attendees to witness to the truth about the value of life with their own lives.
“The antidote to the culture of death in this country is many of you who are living this in your daily and weekly lives,” he said.
Jan. 22 marked the 51st anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. The high court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned the 1973 decision, returning abortion issues to the states, which have enacted varying laws governing it.
As they emerged from the Cathedral, a larger-than-usual number of marchers waited about 15 minutes to proceed on crowded sidewalks toward the Capitol. Temperatures in the 30s made the wait more bearable than in some past years.
When they reached the Capitol, marchers listened to a program that included prayer, music, presentations by MCCL’s president and co-directors, and the testimony of a young woman born with birth defects for which many babies are aborted.
Before the march, participants could pick up one of 12,000 fetal models provided by MCCL and representing different stages of development. The models were designed to mark the more than 12,000 babies that were aborted in Minnesota in 2022. Marchers placed the models on a row of tables on the Capitol steps for the rally. Afterward, the models were carried into the Capitol in red cloths laid out inside the Capitol rotunda.
“For Minnesota, 12,000 lives is a lot of lives lost,” said Cathy Blaeser, MCCL co-director. However, she said, it’s likely because of legislation passed last year removing many restrictions on abortion, that the 2023 numbers are significantly higher, as indicated by one group’s early reports.
“They have seen over 17,000 babies aborted in our state,” Blaeser said. “If this is true, and it likely is, we will have returned to the highest number of abortions in Minnesota since 1980.”
Teacher Hannah Wegner of Providence Academy in Plymouth said her middle school students are learning about the abortion laws the Minnesota Legislature passed last year. They recognize they can make a difference in the state, said Wegner, who helped lead a group of 31 Providence Academy high school and eight middle school students to the prayer service and the march.
“I think a lot of them see (attending the march) as an opportunity to make a difference and to get their voices heard and let legislators know that young people do care about this,” she said. “It’s very exciting for me.”
Even as the culture drifts further from the truth about the value of life from conception until natural death, marching is a small thing pro-life advocates can do to make their presence known prayerfully, said Mary Allinder, who traveled to the march in St. Paul from Spicer, along with her husband, Tom.
Our society has lost its respect for life, Tom Allinder said. And abortion is being presented as healthcare, without regard for someone dying in the process, he said.
“I would say that very few people would know that 12,000 babies died in the state of Minnesota last year, if they did,” said Tom Allinder, who belongs to a Knights of Columbus chapter at Our Lady of the Lakes in Spicer. “If it was anything other than abortion, people would be appalled.”
March for Life in Washington, D.C.
The week before Bishop Williams encouraged Minnesota pro-lifers to work for a culture of life and encounter, 28 Minnesota high school students and 10 adult leaders attended the 51st national March for Life in Washington, D.C.
They also discussed restoring the culture of life to their lives, homes and families, said Bill Dill, youth discipleship director in the archdiocese’s Office of Marriage, Family and Youth and leader of the Jan. 16-21 trip. Auxiliary Bishop Michael Izen also spent time with the pilgrims.
“We talked about the culture of life, (that) we’re not just pro-life, we’re not just anti-abortion,” said Dill, who has led 12 archdiocesan high school groups to the march in Washington in the past 15 years. “We really want to promote a real culture of life that helps us be who God wants us to be.”
The group — consisting of students from Unity Catholic High School in Burnsville, Epiphany in Coon Rapids and some who are homeschooled — was impressed by the many thousands of marchers, Dill said, “They feel like wow, this is not just me, this is not just a small thing, this is huge.”
Seeing so many other pro-lifers made Allison Williams, a junior at Unity Catholic, realize the importance of the movement and solidify her dedication to protecting the unborn.
Attending the march in Washington for the second year in a row, Williams said transforming the culture into one that celebrates, rather than destroys, life will help society recognize and respect the dignity of the unborn.
In addition to the march, one highlight for Williams was when the students brought a letter advocating for federal abortion law changes to the offices of Minnesota’s U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith. The students weren’t able to speak to the senators, she said, but it “was an incredible opportunity to express our wish for abortion to end, and for women and children to be supported.”
Another Unity Catholic student, sophomore Nina Schoenfelder, said it was her second march, and she hoped to learn how to have more respectful conversations with abortion supporters to win their hearts, and not simply win arguments. National pro-life leaders at a conference after the march presented techniques for those conversations, she said.
Schoenfelder said she also found motivation to pray more often and ask for the Blessed Mother’s and the saints’ intercession for the pro-life movement, and to do more volunteer work.
