The executive director of Ohio Right to Life told The Star News Network he and the more than 100 young people he bused to Washington for Friday’s 49th March for Life could have marched for the last time under the current abortion regime.
“We believe in the power of prayer, and we believe prayer through all these years of the movement has brought us to this point,” said Peter Range, who just joined Ohio Right to Life after working as the director of the Life and Justice Office at the Diocese of Toledo.
“A point – that this could literally be the last March for Life that happened under Roe v. Wade, because of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case the Supreme Court will rule on,” said Range.
Range said he warned the first-timers as they boarded the buses in Ohio that it would be cold, but it was a chance to offer up their struggles in the cold temperature, which dipped to 25 degrees with a steady breeze.
“You will have the opportunity to offer up suffering, including the cold, for the purpose and mission of this cause, and that is to ensure that every single human child conceived and made in the image and likeness of God receives the first fundamental right—and that is the right to life,” he said.
And we're off! @March_for_Life here we come! Proud to represent @ohiolife and join the @DioceseToledo as well as the @CultureProject_ in the fight for life! #prolifegeneration #whywemarch #lifeissacred pic.twitter.com/rFSUouIpqp
— Peter Range (@PeterRange12) January 20, 2022
“It was definitely cold,” he said.
Range said it was also the chance to be with tens of thousands of like-minded young people for the young first-timers.
“They came from schools like University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, Lourdes University in Toledo, and around northwest Ohio and the Diocese of Toledo,” he said.
“They’re given the message that to be pro-life is to be in the minority, but we know even from the beginning of the pro-abortion rights movement, there was a tendency to create these false polls that made the pro-life groups look like the minority,” he said.
“It always brings me tremendous hope and energy as well to see the enthusiasm that our young people will bring to this trip—I mean, we’re really living in a pro-life generation, and I am excited to be a part of it,” Range said. “It is not 1973 anymore.”
The Ohio pro-life leader said the marchers brought their physical and spiritual presence to the National Mall rally and the march that took them east on Pennsylvania Avenue and then continuing up Constitution Avenue until they reached the Supreme Court just behind the Capitol.
“It’s an opportunity to really make a difference, and we know that it makes a difference to our lawmakers and even those on the Supreme Court—from our spiritual presence, but also from our spiritual presence we bring as well from our prayers,” he said.
“We prayed as we marched up Constitution Avenue, and then we stopped at the Supreme Court to say a few prayers, as well,” he said. “We really think this trip is a pilgrimage.”
The @March_for_Life declares: you are precious, unrepeatable, and irreplaceable! May Roe be overturned, abortion abolished & every child granted the first inaliable right: the right to life! #prolifegeneration #Onward #cultureoflife #MarchForLife #endabortion Ohio Right to Life pic.twitter.com/RCjc3PpesU
— Peter Range (@PeterRange12) January 21, 2022
Range said when the marchers come home to Ohio, there is still work to do, especially with Senate Bill 123, “Human Life Protection Act,” sponsored by state Sen. Kristina D. Roegner, which would ban abortions in Ohio.
“Ohio has been the epicenter of the abortion debate,” he said.
“We passed more than 25 pro-life laws and regulations in the past decade; of course, because of the courts, many of these laws have been hung up,” he said.
“In many ways, Ohio is prepared for a post-Roe v. Wade era,” he said.
“Ohio’s parenting and pregnancy support programs provide $6 million for at-risk moms and through grants to life-affirming organizations, and Ohio has over 100 pregnancy centers.”
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Neil W. McCabe is the national political editor for The Star News Network. Send him news tips: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @neilwmccabe2.
Photo “Peter Range” by Peter Range.
