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Thank you to everyone who joined us in DC, along with those who prayed for an end to abortion in their home towns. Every year, the March for Life gets bigger and bigger. And Wisconsin continues to be well-represented!

Close to 20 buses from around Wisconsin traveled to Washington, DC for the March. Many carloads of people drove separately, and dozens of individuals and groups of students from several Wisconsin colleges and high schools flew out. Bishop Ricken of the Diocese of Green Bay attended the March with the Diocese’s group.

Read an article about the Vigil for Life Mass, held the night before the March, here.

After the rally, Rep. Sean Duffy held a pro-life reception for people from Wisconsin at his Capitol Hill office. Hundreds of people turned out to visit Duffy’s office. Other than Rep. Duffy, speakers at the reception included Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, Sen. Ron Johnson, Rep. Reid Ribble, Rep. Chris Smith, Rep. Paul Ryan, Raymond Arroyo of EWTN and National Review columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez.

To get an idea of just how big the March is, watch a minute-long time lapse video of last year’s March for Life here.

Photos from the March, below.

Part of our group, waiting for the March to get going.

Pro-life youth!

Marquette University Students for Life

A group of nearly 250 from St. John Cantius Church of Chicago.

Diocese of Omaha, Nebraska

Marchers stretched for miles and miles.

And miles… the street is filled with pro-lifers as far as the eye can see!

Raymond Arroyo speaking during Rep. Duffy’s reception.

Sen. Ron Johnson speaking during Rep. Duffy’s reception.

Photos at Sts. Peter & Paul blog.

From the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, entire article here:

Many see in these young people a real search for certainty in an era of ambiguity. Mike Hayes, author of “Googling God: The Religious Landscape of People in Their 20s and 30s” writes, “In a world where life seems very fleeting, young adults search for things they can depend on, things that have stood the test of time, things they regard as true, and things greater than themselves.” And for their little brothers and sisters, Catholics in their teens, many seem utterly and simply “on fire” about their faith in a way that older generations find hard to fathom. In their world and in their understanding, living one’s faith is not a given; it must be a conscious decision, and they are embracing the truths of the faith and challenging those older – and perhaps more lukewarm than themselves – to do the same.

This passion  was evidenced on Friday, January 20, 2012 as the Archbishop Cousins Catholic Center came alive with the flames of faith at the “IGNITE! Youth Rally for Life” sponsored by the Nazareth Project of the John Paul II Center. Almost 700 high school students and their chaperones, along with scores of young priests and seminarians from the dioceses of La Crosse, Green Bay, Milwaukee and Madison, came together for the celebration of the Mass and a two-hour praise and worship rally for life. Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki presided at the “Mass for Life” in a jam-packed Mater Christi Chapel. As part of the Mass, he gave his blessing as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to all of the students who would travel on to the March for Life in Washington, D.C.  The praise and worship rally that followed the Mass rocked the Cousins Center auditorium with music by the band SONAR and later featured Auxiliary Bishop Donald J. Hying leading the gathering in eucharistic adoration and Benediction.

This immense pro-life response locally is echoed all across the country, and as Archbishop Listecki has said, “The unborn don’t vote. These young people will.”

This generation’s passion and fervor for their faith is out-of-control . . . and it’s “catching.” Catch the fever yourself, and feed the flames of faith in your own life. Let Jesus Christ ignite the flames of desire and love in your heart for him. We will set the world ablaze!

January 22, 2012 marks 39 years of legalized abortion in the United States. It has been 39 years since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade.

As a 2005 graduate of UW-Madison, women of my generation are all too familiar with “choice,” the pro-abortion euphemism for the option to legally kill your own unborn child. We have heard the mantra from the Baby Boomers that the world is ours, and an unwanted pregnancy will get in the way of breaking the glass ceiling.

Women of my generation know what choice is. It is neither compassionate nor caring. The face of choice is a friend who commits suicide after having an abortion, when the realization of what she has done sinks in. We have watched as choice wreaked havoc on our friends’ bodies and minds, as abortion took its physical and mental toll. We have watched as choice ended friends’ relationships, women no longer able to look at their partner, men emasculated with no say in the matter.

Choice takes advantage of a woman who is alone and in a desperate place. Nothing about abortion on demand liberates women. Why can’t we see we are killing the next generation of feminists?

Sadly, abortion is an everyday occurrence. Since 1973, nearly 55 million children have been killed through abortion. One-third of my generation is missing due to abortion; legally exterminated in this country we are so proud to call the best country in the world.

In the black community, the numbers are staggering. 3,000 abortions occur every day in the United States, but 1,000 of those are African American babies.  Wisconsin is the eighth lowest state nationally in the number of abortions, but the racial disparity in its numbers far exceeds the national trends. In Wisconsin, 6.2% of the population is black, yet 24% of all state abortions are on African-Americans, which is four times the representation.

If “Every abortion is a tragedy,” as pro-abortion figures proclaim, why are we not doing more to encourage safe and healthy lifestyle choices? Women deserve more, and women deserve better.

We owe it to the next generation of women to offer love and compassion, rather than terminating a human life. We owe it to the next generation to give them a world where abortion is not the solution, masquerading as women’s health.

My generation does not want abortion as our legacy. My generation will be the one to end legalized abortion.

- Virginia Zignego, Communications Director

This is super exciting!! And another slam-dunk pro-life bill for Rep. Andre Jacque, author of the Wisconsin Personhood Amendment.

Pro-Life Wisconsin is strongly supporting legislation currently under circulation that would permit the creation of a “Choose Life” specialty license plate in Wisconsin. Proceeds from plate sales would fund the work of crisis pregnancy centers across the state, including adoption assistance.

Authored by State Representative Andre Jacque (R-Bellevue) and State Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), LRB 3486 would require plate holders to pay a $15 issuance fee and a $25 annual fee that provides funds to Choose Life Wisconsin.  These fees would be in addition to basic plate registration fees. For more details, please click here for a copy of the bill.

Trying something new here… every Friday (more or less) we’ll be posting a round-up of our favorites from Twitter the past week. Follow us on Twitter here!

Pro-Life Wisconsin’s Rock County affiliate has been instrumental in the closing of this abortion mill, and we congratulate them on their successful pro-life efforts. Proof that pro-life activism works, PLW Rock County members regularly sidewalk counseled and prayed outside this abortion facility for more than twenty years.

We have already seen women traveling to Milwaukee from northern Illinois for abortions, and we anticipate the traffic to continue. Affiliated Medical Services in Milwaukee is the only remaining late-term abortion facility in Wisconsin.

In an article titled “The Same Stones as Dachau,” the Jan. 16 National Catholic Register profiled some of these prayer warriors, longtime PLW activists.

Sister Rosalia Bauer, a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, prayed in front of what she called “the abortion mill” every Friday for 13 years. She said that as a nurse she could never call that building a clinic. She called it a mill. A mill that manufactured and profited from death.She remembers being joined to pray at the clinic by a woman from Poland. The woman took one look at Northern Illinois Women’s Center and told Sister Rosalia that “the stone on the outside of the building are the same kind of stone used in Dachau.”

The building at 1400 Broadway in Rockford Illinois had ironically been built as a schoolhouse over a century ago but for the past few decades it’s been home to the region’s only abortion clinic. At its height, the NIWC destroyed 75 human beings a week. It may also have been one of the most infamous in the country.

Pro-life school teacher Kevin Rilott remembers the first time he came to pray at NIWC many years ago. A man came out and yelled at him “Why do you come here. Only n%&&ers and prostitutes get abortions. Why are you here?”

“He thought that would drive me away,” said Rilott. “But I thought if that’s the attitude, we’re definitely needed here.”

Read the rest of the article, it is a testament to twenty years of sidewalk counseling and pro-life activism.

The Rockford Register Star also has a brief article with pictures about a prayer vigil held yesterday outside the Rockford abortion mill.