Abortion foes rally in Washington, spurred by pope

WASHINGTON - Thousands of marchers braved freezing temperatures in Washington on Wednesday to demand an end to abortion in the United States, with Pope Francis tweeting his support.

The annual March for Life marks the anniversary -- in this case the 41st -- of the US Supreme Court's landmark Roe versus Wade decision that effectively legalized abortion nationwide.

"We're pro-life because we believe in the rights of unborn children," March for Life president Jeanne Monahan told the crowd on the snow-covered National Mall, with the Capitol in the distance.

On Twitter, where he has three million followers in English, Pope Francis sent from the Vatican a message of support to the protesters, including large numbers of Roman Catholics.

"I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers," said the pontiff, who last year denounced abortion as a symptom of today's "throw-away culture."

"May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable," he added.

US President Barack Obama, who has expressed admiration for some of the pope's messages and is due to meet him in Rome in March, is on the other side of the debate.

In a statement to mark the anniversary, the White House reaffirmed Obama's position that "every woman should be able to make her own choices about her body and her health.

"We reaffirm our steadfast commitment to protecting a woman's access to safe, affordable health care and her constitutional right to privacy, including the right to reproductive freedom," it said.

At the rally on the nearby Mall, speaker after speaker mourned the estimated 56 million fetuses which, they said, have been "brutally slayed" in American abortion clinics over the past four decades.

"Our society and our leaders must stop upholding abortion and start encouraging adoption," said Vicky Hartzler, a Republican congresswoman and Tea Party favorite from Missouri.

"Abortion hurts everyone," she declared.

Fifty-three percent of Americans support a woman's right, in consultation with her doctor, to decide whether or not to undergo an abortion, the principle enshrined by Roe versus Wade, according to a Gallup poll at the end of last year.

Twenty-nine percent want the Supreme Court ruling overturned, however, while 18 percent have no opinion on the matter -- the highest level since Gallup started asking the question in 1989.

Another poll, by YouGov.com for the Huffington Post website, found 47 percent supporting Roe versus Wade, 33 percent against and 20 percent "not sure."

But the anti-abortion movement -- underpinned by the Catholic church and social conservatives -- remains a political force to be reckoned with, not least with the 2016 presidential election looming.

Last year alone, 22 of the 50 states enacted a total of 70 abortion restrictions -- the greatest number in any year besides 2011, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a specialist think tank.

The issue, meanwhile. returned to the Supreme Court last week when its nine justices heard arguments over a Massachusetts law creating a buffer zone around abortion clinics targeted by pro-life activists.

Pro-abortion advocates cancelled plans for a counter-protest in Washington on Wednesday, citing the cold snap that followed a snowstorm Tuesday up and down the northeastern US coast.

On their stoppatriarchy.org website, they lashed out at what they called "a Christian fundamentalist-driven assault ... imperiling abortion, birth control, real sex education and women's lives."

In the pro-life crowd Wednesday, university graduate Kristin Hagelin, 21, attending her first March for Life, said her opposition to abortion took shape "quite recently" after her boyfriend proposed to her and she reflected on married life.

"A lot of people don't realize how horrible abortion is," she told AFP as she handed out "I Am the Pro-Life Generation" placards.

"Even just seeing pictures of what abortion is -- it's tearing a life apart."

From Pittsburgh, 57-year-old electrical engineer Don Kirkwood, a member of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, marched with a statue of the Virgin Mary, "a role model for all young mothers."

"It seems it's getting worse rather than better," he said when asked how he thought the struggle against abortion was going.

"Even Catholics in Congress and the Senate are not doing what good Catholics should do," he complained.

But Kirkwood, who has attended every March for Life for the past 20 years, added: "What I find encouraging are all the young people here."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

US protesters urge Obama to act on global warming

WASHINGTON - Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Washington Sunday to generate pressure on President Barack Obama to take concrete measures to fight global warming.

Waving banners and signs with slogans like "What will be your climate legacy?" the protesters called on Obama to reject the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would bring oil from Canada to Texas, and order the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set carbon standards for power plants.

"We want to challenge president Obama to be a main actor as opposed to being a puppet of the big oil companies," Canadian-born actress Evangeline Lilly, star of TV's "Lost," told AFP. "It's about telling him his speech did not fall in deaf ears."

The event at the National Mall was organized by local and national environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, under an umbrella group named Forward on Climate.

"It's time for the country to wake up, the US has been dragging its feet too long," said Mimi Brody, one of the protesters.

Among the protesters was Nolan Gould, the 14 year-old star of the TV series "Modern Family."

"I'm very hopeful things will change for kids and we'll start realizing we need to take it even further -- take further steps to save this world, because it's all we have and it's not fair to mess it up," Gould told AFP.

"It's by far, by far, the biggest rally on climate in US history," environmental activist Bill McKibben told the crowd as it assembled at the Washington Monument at the Mall. Organizers said that protesters had arrived aboard buses from 28 states.

Van Jones, a one-time Obama adviser on the environment, was strident in his demand for change.

"President Obama, all the good you've done will be wiped out by floods, by fires, by superstorms if you fail to act now!" he told the crowd, indirectly addressing the US leader.

Celebrities who have signed a petition supporting the protesters include Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Morgan Freeman, Robert Kennedy Jr and Yoko Ono.

The rally comes after the United States last year endured record high temperatures and lengthy droughts, as well as superstorm Sandy, which devastated the New York-New Jersey coastline.

The protest is "very significant," said Jeff Brown, who traveled from the northeastern state of Massachusetts for the demo. "It's demonstrating a strong environmental movement" which is "not fringe, it's mainstream."

Obama mentioned climate change during his inauguration speech in January, and in Tuesday's State of the Union he vowed to take action "for the sake of our children and our future" if Congress fails to do so.

"I will direct my cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy," Obama said in his speech.

The United States is the world's second largest CO2 emitter after China. Soon after taking office in 2009, Obama presented an ambitious measure aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. But the bill ran into stiff resistance from the Republican opposition.

source: abs-cbnnews.com