WASHINGTON -- While hundred thousands of pro-choice protesters are expected to join the March for Women's Lives, Sunday, April 25, which is their first major march in Washington in 12 years, a group of hundred protesters against abortion led prayerful demonstration today, April 24, in front of Planned Parenthood Clinic in Washing prior to pro-choice demonstration.
The March for Women’s Lives will join by around 70 pro-choice denominations, including the Presbyterian, Methodist, and other religious groups.
Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, thinks religious communities have become more visible since the 1992 abortion rights march that brought hundreds of thousands to the nation's capital. Her group will be represented at the interfaith service and plans a protest in front of the Vatican Embassy on Saturday, before the march.
"The overall plan for the day is to demonstrate that Catholics are a part of the reproductive health movement, are pro-choice and are supportive of pro-choice policy-makers," she said.
The Rev. Carlton Veazey, president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, said his network of 40 denominations and religious groups would join the big march.
"We are bringing people from all over the country to witness that religious people are pro-choice," he said, "There's a need for religious people to say 'Yes, this is where we stand and we stand on our faith on this matter."'
"We think that women's rights are being eroded," Veazey said, concerning the stability of the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized most abortions. "We see a definite threat against Roe vs. Wade."
"For us, a major aspect of the issue of reproductive choice is religious freedom," said Nancy Kipnis, vice president of the National Council of Jewish Women. "Every religion speaks to this in a different way and we are deeply, deeply committed to the concept that one religion can't trump the others. . . . Religious viewpoints are so personal and they must be respected."
Abortion battle is still ongoing in New York, Nebraska, and San Francisco. Over the last six months, President Bush signed two measures -- the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
