January 4, 2021

Local March for Life to be held Jan. 22 in Springfield

  REGIONAL

  Story and photos by Carolee McGrath

Local pro-lifers participate in the 2020 March for Life held in downtown Springfield. (iObserve file photo)

SPRINGFIELD – Pro-Life of Pioneer Valley, Inc. will once again host a local March for Life, stepping off from St. Michael’s Cathedral, Friday, Jan. 22. 

The pro-life event will begin with a 10:30 a.m. Mass to be celebrated by Springfield Bishop William Byrne. 

“We want to be a local witness to people in our area to let them know that the pro-life movement is alive and well,” said James Brunault, board member of Pro-Life of Pioneer Valley, Inc. Brunault said because of COVID-19 restrictions, masks will be required at the Mass and on the march, social distancing will be observed, and there will not be a stop at Springfield City Hall on the route. In previous years, the group would stop to pray on the steps of City Hall. 

“It’s open to anybody. People who can’t walk will pray the rosary in the church,” Brunault said. 

He said the local witness is a way people can help change hearts and minds about abortion in their own community. 

“We feel when people hear the truth about the situation they become pro-life,” Brunault told iObserve. 

Due to the virus, Pioneer Valley Massachusetts Citizens for Life (PV-MCFL) is not organizing the annual trip to Washington, D.C., for the national March for Life, which will be held Friday, Jan. 29. Typically, PV-MCFL sends three buses down to the March for Life, with other buses leaving from Franklin County and the Berkshires.

Local marchers head down State Street in Springfield during the January 2020 March for Life. (iObserve file photo)

This January, a new abortion law takes effect in Massachusetts, allowing abortion past 24 weeks in certain circumstances, including a lethal fetal anomaly, and to “preserve a woman’s physical or mental health.” It also lowers the age of consent from 18 to 16 years old.
According to the Massachusetts Catholic Conference (MCC), while the legislation does not require a physician to use lifesaving equipment should a baby survive a late-term abortion, it does require lifesaving equipment to be in a room where those abortions are performed.

The Massachusetts bishops released a response after the passage of the bill in late December, stating, “The unborn child is a human life that must be protected. That precious child has no voice to protect itself from the evils of abortion. The Catholic Church recognizes that it has a primary moral responsibility to speak for the most vulnerable among us, the unborn. That responsibility is at the center of the Catholic moral vision.”

The local March for Life falls on the 48^th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion on demand. The number of abortions per year are on the decline, hovering around 860,000. However, according to an analysis by National Right to Life, which looked at statistics gathered by the Guttmacher Institute, a former research arm of Planned Parenthood, there have been more than 61 million abortions since 1973.