Sixteen Marquette students will participate in the annual March for Life demonstration in Washington D.C. Jan. 22.
Since 1974, pro-life supporters gather annually on the National Mall to protest abortion peacefully. The march takes place around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion.
Students have represented Marquette at March for Life for several years now. This year’s participants are co-sponsored by Students for Life club and Campus Ministry.
“When we talk about Marquette as a Catholic university, we are all about supporting the dignity of human life,” said Steve Blaha, director of Campus Ministry.
Blaha played a role in organizing the trip and publicizing it to the Marquette community.
During the pilgrimage, students will also attend the National Prayer Vigil for Life at the Basilica of the National Shrine, the Jesuit Pro-Life Network Mass at St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church and the Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life at Georgetown University.
“I am really looking forward to the Cardinal O’Connor Conference,” said Sarah Huber, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences and president of Students for Life. “We have gone to that the past couple of years. It has workshops that cover a bunch of different pro-life issues.”
This year will be Huber’s eighth time joining the March for Life pilgrimage. She said the club aims to promote productive and positive conversations on campus about its pro-life beliefs.
“This is a major social justice issue of our time,” Huber said. “Yes, part of it is about abortion, but in Students for Life, we try to garner a respect for all life and try to get involved with a bunch of different causes.”
Similar to Students for Life’s efforts to start conversations between conflicting opinions, pro-choice students are also pushing to collaborate on the issue.
“I’d love to see more organizations led by women, liberal or conservative, which aim to provide resources and support pregnant women and new mothers,” said Hilary Laskonis, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences and the chair of College Democrats. “I think that if pro-choice and pro-life folks could actually work together to provide this support, we’d see many more happy mothers and children.”
The pro-life students attending the march will gather as a group Jan. 21 before flying to Washington D.C. to discuss what they seek by taking the pilgrimage. They will also meet every day during the pilgrimage for a reflection.
Campus Ministry is also sponsoring multiple on-campus events on Jan. 21 and Jan. 22, that includes a Mass for life at the Church of the Gesu’s Lower Church, a Marquette March for Life, a “Life Zone” in the AMU and Eucharistic Adoration.
Both the Mass for life and the Marquette March for Life will take place at the same time as those events in Washington.
