(LifeSiteNews) — Almost 200 pro-lifers gathered outside a Michigan abortion facility on Saturday for a Eucharistic procession held to celebrate the first anniversary of the Dobbs decision.
The witness took place outside the Northland Family Planning abortion center in Westland, Michigan on June 24 marked one year since the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade, revoking a Constitutional “right” to abortion and returning legislation on the issue to individual states.
“It’s time we take Jesus to the abortionists, because they’re not about to go, very likely, on their own to seek Him,” Lynn Mills, local pro-life activist and organizer of the event, told LifeSiteNews in a phone interview. “So, let’s bring Him, Jesus, to the middle — give them an opportunity to interact.”
As founder and director of Pro-Life Michigan, Mills witnesses and prays outside the abortion facility and invites others to do the same. However, she said, “I thought there should be lots of people out there on the first anniversary of the overturning of Roe.” She added that while the National March for Life each January has seen “hundreds of thousands” of pro-life witnesses, post-Roe America remains the time and place to shift the same witness from a national level to a local level.
Mills explained that the procession came together after she began collaborating with men from nearby St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, who have joined Fr. John Hedges, the parish’s pastor, in praying outside the Westland killing center over the past three years.
While the parish trips were “getting a decent amount” of participants, Mills and the men from the parish agreed that “there should be more.” Saturday’s Eucharistic procession saw nearly 200 attendees after roughly 300 came to pray at the same location on June 10.
Addressing the reality of continuing to fight abortion locally since Roe’s reversal, Mills pointed out that Michigan decided to reject its long-held protections for the unborn, repealing a 1931 law that banned abortion throughout the state.
“Now it’s like we have no protection,” she said, adding that the remaining hope is the Church, including holy priests, religious and lay faithful who are “boldly going to the abortion mill with the Eucharist.”
“That’s what we need. And we need the Church to not fail us. We need the boldness of Christ in our people, in our priests, in our Catholic church and in our leaders. That’s what we need and that’s the attraction. And that’s what Fr. John Hedges, a living saint, is doing and is giving us, because this state is really hopeless except for Christ.”
After voters upended pro-life laws in November, the priest led nearly 200 Catholics in another Eucharistic procession at the state capitol, protesting the embrace of abortion in Michigan.
LifeSiteNews has contacted St. Stephen’s parish to request comment from Fr. Hedges on his pro-life witness but did not immediately receive a response.
Even as Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has repealed the state’s pro-life law that would have gone into effect after the Dobbs decision and signed legislation designed to force companies to pay for employee abortions, Michigan pro-life efforts continue. In addition to the well-attended Eucharistic procession on Saturday, Mills fights to close killing centers through the Pro-Life Michigan apostolate.
“I believe in activism,” she told LifeSiteNews. “I believe in going to where they’re killing children. I believe in doing research and fighting the scourge of abortion through state agencies.”
Part of the pro-life organization’s work is “finding what the abortionists [are] doing criminally and filing allegations through the proper channels within the state and hoping [and] praying to get abortionists’ licenses pulled and closing down abortion clinics that way.”
Mills and her fellow pro-lifers help women who have undergone abortion to file complaints against doctors and/or facilities that failed to comply with state public health laws and protocols. More information on how to file a complaint against an abortionist in Michigan can be found on Pro-Life Michigan’s website.
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