Organizers of an annual anti-abortion rally and march say they are invigorated that Maine has a governor who is publicly opposed to abortion.
The “Hands Around the Capitol” rally in Augusta is held each year to recognize and mourn the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion 38 years ago.
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Gov. Paul LePage joined several hundred people who attended Saturday’s event, which included a Mass, a prayer service, a rally and a march before culminating with a human chain around the Capitol building. Many carried “Stop Abortion” signs.
Activists also said Saturday they’re as optimistic as ever that, with the new Republican majority in Augusta, legislation chipping away at abortion access in Maine will become law.
One proposal would require that a minor’s parents be notified before doctors perform an abortion.
Another would impose a 24-hour waiting period before a woman can undergo an abortion.
A third piece of pending legislation would set up a program to inform women of medical risks associated with abortion.
“We’re in a better place than I’ve ever seen us be with regard to these issues,” Bob Emrich, executive director of the Maine Jeremiah Project, a coalition of religious and social conservatives, told hundreds gathered in the St. Michael School gymnasium.
Bishop Richard Malone of the Catholic Diocese of Portland called abortion a “moral evil.”
“Abortion happens because there’s something wrong in the minds and hearts of many of our brothers and sisters out there,” he said.
The anti-abortion cause is gaining among teenagers and young adults, said Carl Maddaleni, who directs the Maine Vitae Society, the Right to Life Committee’s advertising arm. That’s due to abortion opponents’ efforts to promote their cause online, he said.
LePage, who joined the abortion opponents for the first portion of the rally, “supports the idea that abortion is wrong, and it shouldn’t be a choice that anybody has to make,” spokesman Dan Demeritt said. The governor plans to “work with legislators on these issues,” he said.
LePage made his appearance one day after he told WCSH-TV that he wouldn’t attend Martin Luther King Jr. Day events in Portland and Orono because the NAACP represented a “special interest.”
“I’m not going to be held hostage by special interests,” he said Friday, retorting that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People could “kiss my butt.”
Asked Saturday whether the Maine Right to Life Committee represented a special interest, Demeritt said special interests inevitably would end up on LePage’s schedule.
“This isn’t about politics,” he said of Saturday’s rally. “This is about supporting a group that’s worked very hard to make sure that life is a choice that everybody can make.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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