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CHICAGO, January 27, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Almost 600 carloads of pro-life advocates participated in March for Life Chicago’s first-ever car rally through the streets of downtown Chicago on January 23.
The procession started at St. John Cantius Church on the city’s Northside. Cars were decorated with pro-life signs. Around 1 p.m., drivers began to make their way through downtown on a route that brought them past key city, state, and federal buildings. Small pro-life groups along the route cheered as the cars bedecked with pro-life signs drove by.
“Nine years ago when a hundred and fifty people walked at the March for Life Chicago, it was hard to imagine that we’d grow to thousands of people flooding the streets and echoing off the skyscrapers. We’re bringing that same passion as we bring our cars this year and raise our signs and our voices in downtown Chicago,” stated the organizers of the event.
The procession ended at Southside Pregnancy Center where participants had the opportunity to support babies and their parents by donating diapers to local pregnancy resource centers. The event was part of a diaper drive to collect 130,094 diapers, a figure representative of the number of babies aborted annually in the Midwest. In-person and online donations surpassed that number by over 25,000 diapers, for a total of 156,518 diapers, which will be distributed among 20 local pregnancy resource centers.
As pro-lifers drove in their cars through the city, they tuned into speeches given at a virtual event.
Among the speakers were Dan Lipinski, a former U.S. congressman and the lead Democratic co-sponsor of numerous pieces of pro-life legislation, Mary Fiorito, a Cardinal Francis George Fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, Pastor Mark Jobe, President of Moody Bible Institute and host of the national radio program Bold Steps, and Dr. Christina Frances of the American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNs.
Overseen by weDignify and dozens of local organizations, this year’s March for Life Chicago saw the Midwest pro-life movement supporting life in a new way — through Moving the Movement, a multi-city tour in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 23 car rally in Chicago with stops in Des Moines, Iowa; Indianapolis, Indiana; Omaha, Nebraska; Madison, Wisconsin; Mundelein, Illiniois; and Fort Wayne, Indiana. The tour spanned five states. At each tour stop, speakers addressed the fallout from abortion, how it kills babies and harms parents. Diapers were collected at each stop.
Organizer Kevin Grillot, Executive Director of weDignify, called the Moving the Movement tour a “strong public witness to life.”
“Our intention this year was to unite and inspire pro-life communities in Chicago and across the Midwest”, said Grillot. “We faced pandemic restrictions, denial of city permits, and weather challenges, yet the turnout at our stops in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Indiana, and Illinois exceeded our expectations. We were blown away by the dedication of speakers, volunteers and, most of all, the thousands of pro-life advocates who turned out en masse.”
March for Life Chicago 2022 is set for January 8. Downtown Chicago will again feature the March for Life Chicago Convention, which debuted at the 2020 march to a capacity crowd. The Hilton Chicago on Michigan Avenue is the planned location.