Thousands Brave Winter Weather for the March for Life Chicago

A winter storm hit Chicago over the weekend, with weather so bad that more than 1,000 flights were cancelled out of O’Hare. But that didn’t stop thousands of people from gathering at Daley Plaza for the 7th annual March for Life Chicago.

A Relevant Radio® listener named Bob wrote in to Morning Air® to share his experience of the March. Bob said, “It was beautiful to see so many wonderful people standing up for life.”

Sharing his favorite moment from the event, he wrote, “A group of fifth graders walked past the angry mob of protesters, and the little angels started chanting: ‘We love babies! Yes, we do! We love babies! How about you?’ It’s not every day that you see a gang of angry adults stopped to contemplate the innocent wisdom of children.”

Prior to the March, a rally was held in Daley Plaza, with a variety of speakers proclaiming the message of this year’s March – that Life Empowers: Pro-Life is Pro-Woman.

Cardinal Blaise Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, addressed the crowd, saying, “When a child is born into the world, it’s a great gift. Not just for the child, but for a whole family. A family that sees a legacy carried on and can see in the eyes of that child the future, but also can dream about the many contributions and talents that that child will bring.”

“But also a child calls out from each one of us in a family a sense of generosity, to make room in our lives for that child,” Cardinal Cupich continued. “We are pro-life. We are also pro-women. And so we have to make sure that women have the resources that they need in order to bring that child into the world.”

Congressman Dan Lipinski shared the need for all pro-life people to work together, no matter their differences, in order to protect the most vulnerable in our society, particularly the unborn.

“People ask me, ‘If you are a Democrat, how can you be pro-life?’ And I’d say it’s because I believe we need to protect the most vulnerable,” he told the crowd. “There’s no one more vulnerable than a child in the womb. We need to stand for them. And the pro-life movement is not going to be successful in this country without pro-life Democrats. We need Democrats and Republicans, Independents, everyone working together.”

“Large majorities of Americans agree with us on and are with our side,” Congressman Lipinski affirmed. “But let’s keep fighting. Keep standing up for those who need us to defend them.”

As with many pro-life marches around the country, the crowd was filled with young people, energetically celebrating the beauty of life, and speaking out about the need to defend it. One of the speakers at the rally was Alex Lehan, a student leader for the pro-life group weDignify.

Lehan said, “I march today because I understand that abortion does not empower women. Empowerment is not the destruction of motherhood. As Alice Paul, a leader of the suffragist movement, once said, abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.”

Listen to the full segment below:

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Stephanie Foley serves as a Digital Media Producer at Relevant Radio®. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, where she studied journalism, and she has worked in Catholic radio for 12 years. Stephanie is a wife, a mother of three boys, and in her free time she enjoys reading, running, and really good coffee. You can find more of Stephanie’s writing at relevantradio.com and on the free Relevant Radio mobile app.