This Monday marks a sad but proud tradition. For the past 33 years, wonderful Americans of every race, creed, age and gender, with passion in their hearts and an unwavering determination to speak for the voiceless members of our human family, have traveled to Washington, D.C. on or near Jan. 22 to participate in the March For Life and to be part of an historical struggle to return legal protection to pre-born children. This year, it’s on Jan. 23.

I have had the privilege to be in Washington on the Jan. 22 memorial anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 abortion rulings for many, many years; actually, this year will be my 26th trip to Washington, spanning the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush administrations.

I have marched in solidarity with Americans from each of the 50 states and from countries abroad. Youngsters, teens, young adults, senior citizens — they have all been there to help in some small way.

Over the 27 years of my involvement in the pro-life movement, a couple of moments have etched a permanent place in my mind:

One was a news report I wrote on the gruesome discovery in Santa Monica, Calif., on Feb. 6, 1982 of aborted babies — some as old as 30 weeks — found in a 20-foot long shipping container. The container, found parked in a posh suburban backyard of a Los Angeles pathologist, had been rented by that pathologist to collect from area abortion facilities aborted infants on whom he was to return pathology reports. When the pathologist failed to pay rent on the container, it was re-possessed by the container company.

The shipping container, filled from ceiling to floor, weighed three and a half tons, and as the workers began to unpack the contents, columns of cartons began to collapse and fall out onto the ground. The men were shocked. An employee of the container company, recalled, “One of the boxes fell out of the container, spilling its contents on the ground. I stared at a large object, but could not tell what it was. I called my boss to come over and take a look. All of a sudden we realized with great horror that it was a decapitated body of a baby. Other workers started vomiting.”

Babies had been stuffed into individual plastic containers — similar to the type that might be used for a purchase of potato salad. Each container had a label with information on the date of the abortion, where the baby was aborted, and the size of the baby.

The Los Angeles County Health Department came to remove the boxes and transfer the human bodies to the L.A. Coroner’s Office. The process was difficult and disturbing for the doctors. Some of the babies had been dead for more than two years. The Department of Health reported that there were 16,433 fetal bodies in the steel container and that 193 of the bodies were judged to be older than 20 weeks. I have tragic photographs of the babies taken at the Santa Monica Coroner’s Lab during the autopsies.

Former Calif. Sen. David Roberti compared the Santa Monica discovery to the atrocities of Auschwitz. The pictures which were released to the public in May of 1982 were on the same scale as those which document the Nazi death camps, but unlike the illegal atrocities of Auschwitz, the decapitation, dismemberment, and hypertonic acid-scalding of American unborn babies is fully sanctioned by U.S. law.

The major media ignored the story.

Another life-changing experience was at a “Rejoice for Choice” breakfast held in a plush Senate chamber on Capitol Hill on the morning of a March for Life in the early ’80s. The 50 to 60 attendees were gathered to thank their god for “legalized abortion.” My pro-life friend, Joe Scheidler, of the Chicago-based pro-life group, ProLife Action League, had obtained two tickets for us to attend.

It was a well-dressed affair with men in suits and women in finely tailored dresses. Of course, there was a smattering of congressmen and senators, and the clergy present were dressed in various shades of gray, lavender or blue.

The room carried a disturbing mix of early-morning cologne, perfume and cigarette smoke, coupled with coffee and assorted scents from the heated breakfast chafing dishes. The breakfast buffet was elaborate, but I had no appetite as I watched members of the elite circulate throughout the chandeliered meeting room, sharing greetings, laughing and congratulating each other for their efforts to keep abortion legal.

I could not help but think about the 100,000 average Americans who were gathering outdoors just blocks away to participate in the March for Life. Some had traveled by bus for two days from such distant states as Texas, Kansas and Missouri. They were not being wined and dined in a warm, plush Senate chamber.

Their meeting place was a cold, open field adjacent to the White House. Their sustenance consisted of thermoses of hot chocolate or coffee along with homemade sandwiches. They were warmed by their passion and knowledge that they were sacrificing for someone else.

Their trip to Washington had one purpose — to speak for the voiceless unborn, and although there was “no room for them in the inn,” those pro-life Americans were undaunted in their courageous commitment to witness on behalf of their defenseless sisters and brothers in the womb.

Jan. 22 will mark the 33rd memorial anniversary of the Supreme Court’s abortion rulings, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, which struck down the many laws that protected unborn children. Until that fateful Jan. 22 in 1973, abortion was an unthinkable “choice,” but through judicial fiat, the high court sanctified this deadly choice, and ushered in an era of abortion on demand throughout the entire nine months of a baby’s development. 

I ask the good people of our country to stop and consider that our nation cannot ask God to bless America and at the same time continue to accept the legalized killing of 4,400 human beings each day. Abortion is an evil; it is not a good.

Thirty-three years ... 48 million babies … countless women scarred … countless fathers devastated.

This is the most compelling human-rights struggle of our generation. History and our posterity will demand to know what we did, and why we didn’t do more.

The great American statesman, Patrick Henry, addressing the delegates to the Continental Congress on March 23, 1775, sent a bolt of energy through the crowd with his impassioned plea for immediate action by the colonists against invading British troops. His words, when applied to the need for immediate action to end abortion, are compelling.

Said Henry, “They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week or next year?”

He continued, “Gentlemen may cry, ‘Peace, peace’ — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun — our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we idle here?”

Henry then delivered his most memorable words, “Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”

My friends, I submit that the 33-year war on the unborn has gone on too long. Words of peace on earth ring hollow without peace in the womb. There are millions of Americans in the field who reject abortion. When will we be stronger? Will it be next week or next year? Why stand we idle here?

If we do not right this wrong, if we do not break the chains of blindness and apathy that enslave us in a culture of death, we cannot be a free people. If the unborn child does not have the right to life — the right to enjoy the blessings of liberty — then indeed the rights of all of us are in jeopardy.

Perhaps, like many marchers, you are reading the Register on a bus to Washington, D.C., or on a break outside the National Shrine. Perhaps you’ve taken your chance to lend your voice to the many other brave voices that will be in Washington on Monday, Jan. 23.

Why stand we idle here? For if not now, then when?

Arthur O’Brien writes from
Garden City, New York.