The annual March For Life took place in London on Saturday, with an estimated 5,000 pro-lifers taking to the streets, according to organisers.
From 9am participants began meeting for talks, workshops, and performances.
Tim Dieppe of Christian Concern called for a “counter-cultural” fight against abortion, and a short film by TenTen Productions, Babies, was screened.
The marchers began to convene at around 1.30pm outside Church House, and the March began at 2.
Marchers chanted “Life from conception – no exception” and sang along the way.
The March arrived outside Parliament at 3pm and the Square soon filled up.
Among the speakers were Bishop John Keenan, who compared the “dehumanisation” of slavery to that of abortion, and called for a William Wilberforce-like spirit in abolishing it.
He quoted Wilberforce as saying “Let it not be said that I was silent when they needed me,” and “You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
Obianuju Ekeocha, the president of Culture of Life Africa, also spoke, calling abortion “the human rights issue of our time.”
Another speaker, Melissa Ohden, had nearly been the victim of an abortion, but had miraculously survived.
“I am standing here with you today as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a Master’s level prepared social worker, and yes, as an abortion survivor,” Ohden recounted. “You would never tell by looking at me today, but 41 years ago, I survived a ‘failed’ saline infusion abortion.”
“I should have been delivered dead, as a successful abortion, a deceased child. But quite clearly, God had other plans that day for me.”
A few dozen pro-choice activists had gathered t the side of Parliament Square, and during Ohden’s testimony they parodied Engelbert Humperdinck’s song “I love you baby, and if it’s quite all right,” as “we need abortion and if it’s quite all right.”
This is the second time London has hosted the March for Life, after 2018’s debut. It was previously held in Birmingham.
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