Pro-lifers gathered at St. Rita's Church at 1601 N. Cass St. downtown to rally against abortions on Saturday.
The group of about 200 supporters organized by Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and Pro-Life Wisconsin assembled at St.,”
Abortion is going to end in the next 30 to 40 years, according to abortion opponents.
Anti-abortion advocates gathered downtown at St. Rita's Church, 1601 N. Cass St., to rally against abortion on Saturday, almost 34 years after the historic Roe v. Wade decision.
The group of about 200 supporters, organized by Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and Pro-Life Wisconsin, assembled at St. Rita's for Mass before rallying in front of abortion clinic Affiliated Medical Services, 1428 N. Farwell Ave.
The Rev. Frank Pavone, founder and director of Priests for Life, asserted in his keynote speech that his generation will see the end of abortion.
Priests for Life is a new order which equips and encourages individuals who oppose abortion and euthanasia. According to Pavone, the order – established in 2003 – has seven priests, six seminarians and 200,000 supporters.
Legal abortion has a limited future because women who have had abortions in the past are now speaking out against the practice because of what they say the procedure has done to them, he said.
Pavone said abortion opponents need to expose what abortion actually is.
"The people who work at clinics are corrupt," Pavone said. "And the women who go there are victims of that corruption."
Pavone said that abortion facilities are the most unregulated facilities in America.
The group rallied in front of Affiliated Medical Services for an hour, but according to Anne Shaw, an employee at the clinic, the group's presence did not stop people from coming in.
"We had procedures as usual," she said.
According to Monica Migliorino Miller, director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, people today should become more sensitive to emergency pregnancies and the women who endure them.
"There are 5,000 crisis pregnancy centers in the U.S. but we should have even more," she said. "We should have tax dollars to support these centers."
Miller said if pregnant women considering abortion had more information about options that are available to them, fewer would actually get abortions.
"Unfortunately some people are still going to get abortions," she said.
Pavone compared abortion to slavery and segregation and Miller said she believed abortion was worse than slavery.
Pavone said abortion opponents should be in the business of gathering evidence of how harmful abortion is to women.
"When people actually see abortions taking place they will think, 'How can anyone actually want that?' " he said.
Abortion is destroying itself in the same way slavery and oppression destroyed themselves, he said.
Pavone said the humanity inside each person calls them to be against it.
Miller said abortion could be outlawed in the next 30 to 40 years.
The attempt to ban abortion in South Dakota proves that the issue is hot. Both the South Dakota Legislature and the governor signed the bill, which states that it is a felony to help a woman terminate her pregnancy even in cases of rape and incest. Abortion would be permitted if the woman's life is on the line.
Voters overturned the abortion vote in the November elections.
The Wisconsin Criminal Abortion Statute, on the books since 1849, makes abortion a felony offense for both the doctor and the patient. Roe v. Wade, however, makes this statute unenforceable.
In 1985, Wisconsin passed a law that prohibits abortion after a fetus reaches viability, or when the unborn baby could technically live outside the womb with or without artificial support.
Partial-birth abortion, which is performed late in pregnancy, was banned in Wisconsin in 1997. The procedure is now a Class A felony.
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