TOWANDA – At a pro-life event Saturday in Towanda, Nancy Schrader told the crowd that the most important thing that they could do is pray.
“We can pray for the many pregnant women who right now are unsure about this life-changing decision,” she said. The former county commissioner said that last year alone, more than 30,000 abortions took place in Pennsylvania.
Schrader spoke as the Bradford County Pennsylvanians for Human Life held their annual pro-life rally at the county courthouse in Towanda, marking the Jan. 22, 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. The annual event has been held in bitter cold temperatures in the past, but this year the weather was milder.
Schrader continued, “We can pray for our local pregnancy center, for the new ultrasound that they want to establish in the Valley, so that women can see their unborn babies and can make an intelligent decision based on seeing that ultrasound and the light that they will see with that.”
In addition, Schrader told the people that they can also pray for elected officials, including Bradford County Commissioners Doug McLinko and Daryl Miller, and those in Harrisburg in Washington, “that they would work diligently to save unborn lives” and be given the wisdom and courage to pass pro-life laws.
Shellie Gerould, director of Endless Mountains Pregnancy Care Center, briefly addressed the crowd.
The center is working to open the ultrasound clinic that Schrader referenced. Gerould mentioned the movie “October Baby,” which is playing at the Keystone Theater at 4 p.m. today, Jan. 20. The suggested donation is $5 and proceeds benefit the Endless Mountains Pregnancy Care Center.
The movie website IMDb describes the plot: “A college freshman’s world is rocked when she learns she is the adopted survivor of an attempted abortion.” The woman then goes on a quest to find her birth mother and “discovers that life can be so much more than what we have planned,” according to a movie description.
Miller and McLinko also spoke to those at the rally, several of whom had signs with messages like “Abortion Kills Children” and “Adoption, the Loving Option.”
Miller listed several well-known incidents of violence going back as far as 1999, up to the recent Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy. He said that “in each of these events, there were innocent children’s lives lost.” He noted that each of the tragedies has been followed by the nation’s “riveted attention to the tragic loss of innocent life.”
“As tragic and heart-wrenching as these events are,” Miller asked, “where is the collective outcry” for the millions of “innocent lost lives to abortion?”
McLinko said that “so many people are pro-life when they are running for office, but when they get elected, they change.”
“Maybe you can put it upon their heart, if they do get elected, to pick up and go fight for the unborn.”
Following the rally at the courthouse, the crowd walked to the Assembly of God Church.
Eric Hrin can be reached at (570) 297-5251; email: reviewtroy@thedailyreview.com.