WASHINGTON — The 2019 March for Life plans to fortify its
pro-life message with science that proves life begins at conception and with a
specific focus on stem-cell research.
"Unique From Day One: Pro-Life Is Pro-Science" is the
theme announced Oct. 18 by Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life
Education and Defense Fund. The annual march is scheduled for Jan. 18 to mark
the anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade
decision, which legalized abortion nationwide.
"Our DNA is present at the moment of fertilization,"
Mancini said at the Capitol Hill announcement. "Sadly, society tries to
ignore or block these facts. When President Obama was asked, 'When does life
begin?' he replied that was above his pay grade."
She was referring to Barack Obama when he was running for
president and was asked in 2008 during a Dallas forum with evangelical pastor
Rick Warren: "When does a baby get human rights?" Obama replied,
"Whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a
scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my
pay grade."
"Science should always be at the service of life, not the
reverse," Mancini said. She called for the passage of H.R. 2918, known as
the Patients First Act, sponsored by Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana. The
bill would require the Department of Health and Human Services to support
research on adult stem cells, not those taken from aborted babies.
On Sept. 24, HHS announced that it had it had terminated a
contract between the Food and Drug Administration and Advanced Bioscience
Resources Inc., which has supplied fetal tissue from abortions occurring at or
after nine weeks of pregnancy. At the same time, the agency announced an audit
of all federally funded research related to fetal tissue. But pro-life leaders
plan to pressure HHS to end more than $100 million in funding for research
involving fetal tissue.
"The mission of March for Life is to protect the baby in its
earliest stages," Mancini added. "It's so important to have a
foundation of human dignity for any kind of research."
By the time an unborn infant reaches 18 to 20 weeks, "the
science is very clear that you can perceive pain by that point in time,"
said David Prentice, research director for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the
research arm of Susan B. Anthony List. "These individuals do not need to
be destroyed for healing."
Prentice said adult stem cells "from many different sources —
umbilical cord blood, the liver" would be a suitable replacement.
"Science speaks the truth because it illuminates the
truth," said Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, a radiologist and a policy adviser
for The Catholic Association, who played the sound of a fetal heartbeat at five
weeks of gestation. Abortion "was sold to us as a scientific advance,
maybe the ultimate scientific advance," she said.
But science has subsequently "opened our eyes, it has opened
our ears," she said. And the term for fetuses sometimes used in 1973,
"a ball of cells," she described as "a terrible perversion of
medicine."
Activist David Daleiden's undercover videos from Planned
Parenthood clinics have made him a hero to the pro-life movement and have
gotten him in substantial legal trouble in California, where the videos were
taken.
He and his Center for Medical Progress are defending against 15
state felony charges for conspiracy and invasion of privacy. The charges were
originally filed March 28, 2017, by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
On June 21 of that year a Superior Court judge dismissed 14 of the 15 charges
"with leave to amend," meaning they could be refiled. They were
refiled June 30, 2017.
Also on Oct. 4 of this year, a federal judge refused to lift an
injunction banning the release of videos taken at a National Abortion
Federation meeting.
Nonetheless, Daleiden, after complaining about "jack-booted
thugs" who raided his home and office when he was first prosecuted, played
excerpts of the videos in which organs from aborted fetuses appear to be
discussed as if they were commodities for sale.
"It shows a level of objectification beyond the original
objectification of abortion," he said. "The body parts are only
useful for Planned Parenthood to sell."
Mancini also announced that next year's rally speakers would
include Ben Shapiro, editor in chief of The Daily Wire,
and Abby Johnson, the former abortion clinic worker who founded And Then There
Were None.
This year's rally included a video hookup of President Donald
Trump speaking from the White House with students from the University of Mary
in North Dakota, but political speakers for 2019 won't be announced for a few
more weeks.