The upcoming San Diego Walk for Life will shine a spotlight on a community that is disproportionately threatened by abortion: those with Down syndrome.
Recent studies have shown that three-quarters of pregnant women in the United States and more than 90 percent of their counterparts in some European countries will choose abortion if prenatal testing suggests that their unborn child will have Down syndrome.
“This year, we are honoring and embracing all who have Down syndrome,” said San Diego Walk for Life Coordinator Evangely Aliangan Ward, who noted that this year’s theme was proposed by Kent Peters, who retired last summer as director of the diocesan Office for Social Ministry.
Now in its seventh year, the walk will be held on Saturday, Jan. 19, in Balboa Park. It will run from 8:30 a.m.-noon and will include a line-up of inspiring speakers and feature around 50 exhibitor booths representing a wide assortment of pro-life, pro-family and religious organizations. Participants, many of them carrying signs and banners, will also walk a one-mile route beginning at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Laurel Street.
Both Bishop Robert W. McElroy and Auxiliary Bishop John P. Dolan are expected to attend.
Organizers hope to send the message that “all life is precious” and to combat the notion that a diagnosis of Down syndrome is something to be feared, said Aliangan Ward, who knows parents who have felt pressured to abort after receiving a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome and none who later regretted choosing life.
“They’re great human beings … and they’re a blessing, too,” she said of those with Down syndrome.
And that will be on full display during the upcoming Walk for Life.
This year’s speaking line-up will be composed almost entirely of individuals with Down syndrome and their relatives, said Aliangan Ward.
In addition to the typical assortment of pregnancy care centers, adoption agencies, pro-life ministries, and Catholic apologetics and media organizations, this year’s exhibitors are also expected to include organizations with some connection to Down syndrome.
Full story at The Southern Cross.
It would not take place if it wasn’t approved by Bishop McElroy! Keep praying for him.
I will Elizabeth T. Tonight I will pray the pro life Rosary for all. I will pray for the day that Americans of all colors return to purity and chastity and both mothers and their babies, born and unborn, are protected. We all know that until purity and chastity is returned to this nation and world the protection of mothers and their babies is not going to happen. Women need to respect themselves enough to dress prettily but modestly, and men need to do so too. We all need to practice “custody of the eyes” as the Lord Jesus told us to do.
Yeah, we won’t see an America like that in our lifetimes. It’s pretty much going to be downhill even more from where we are now. Trump will probably be the last Republican President in our lifetimes, and when the Democrats get back in charge of the government they will ramp up the laws and actions to make the country slouch even more toward Gomorrah. I’m not saying don’t pray. I’m saying look at the writing on the wall and be realistic about what’s going on in the country, how demographics are changing, what the young believe… you don’t change all that in five years or even in a single generation.
I meant men need to dress attractively and modestly, too, not prettily.