Pro-life activists rally against Minnesota abortion legislation

[Music] was on Monday January 22nd which marked 51 years since the now overturned Ro v Wade ruling legalized abortion thousands gathered at the Minnesota state capital for the annual March for Life why is the issue of abortion so important to you because every single human being is a person and the right to life is the most important right that the government protects at noon buses unloaded from parochial schools and churches from across the state in front of the capital children and adults paraded around the capital holding homemade mccl provided signs for around 15 minutes until the program began the March is organized by Minnesota citizens concerned for Life mccl the largest pro-life organization in Minnesota mccl criticizes Minnesota's current abortion legislation claiming it to be as as Extreme as any in the world this year's March was especially concerned with the 2023 bill that enshrines the right to make autonomous decisions about the individual's own reproductive health will over half of Minnesotan support state constitutional protections for abortion the bill receives criticism from House and Senate Republicans who worried the bill lacked guard rails such as restrictions for third trimester abortions the question of life should always be yes life is valuable life is sacred and I think it's important to recognize where that life begins and scientifically and spiritually and morally we can all agree that it begins at conception and I think it's just incredible how controversial that is nowadays additionally as presented on a large screen in front of the crowd the pro-life movement has also been motivated by Minnesota's 20% increase in abortions in 2022 the state projects an even more significant increase for 2023 because more out of state patients have have come to Minnesota to pursue an abortion since the overturning of Ro V weade according to WCCO it's killing innocent lives that have no words to even say that I want to be here every life can like make change so we are killing our future like presidents and doctors and people who could discover something very important this year the program featured a display of 12,175 plastic fetuses on the steps of the the capital which represented the number of abortions that took place in Minnesota in 2022 after the program the fetuses were brought into the capital rotunda while the March occurred during the school day a surprising number of young people were present most accompanied by parents or church groups younger Generations more so than previous generations are now more likely to identify as Pro Choice why do you think that is and why do you guys disagree with that I mean I can't I don't know every single person's thought process I know that um I think for many of my friends who are not pro-life is I don't think they realize that this is their internal thinking but they kind of have life on a on a scale I think that the slogan my body my choice is really appealing to some people because of course we do have rights over our body to some extent but I think that when we don't recognize that there's another body involved it can be really Mis leading to people I think it's important especially when there's more people being pro-choice that the pro-life ones stand up and that they're not afraid to stand up and speak about something that is not popular so you guys are here at the capital what action would you like to see the government take to support the pro-life move in what you guys agree with completely nullify abortion I would like to see them be more considerate and uh just think about what they could do more to agree with what we have to say do you think that will ever happen in Minnesota maybe if we keep doing this it might a lot of people think that it's only during the elections that we get to make these big uh that we get to affect our politics but uh it's really more of a Grassroots thing we got to uh go out and uh you know make the argument to people we've got to go and uh convince people by showing up at these sorts of events by doing art and uh by just uh bridging yeah also just Bridging the Gap between uh both different sides of the uh of the debate like uh having you know relationships across political lines and stuff like that yeah