'Say yes, yes, to life.' Stark County Right to Life celebrates end of Roe vs. Wade

MASSILLON − Stark County Right to Life hosts an annual Celebrate Life Dinner, but this year's event had more meaning to those in attendance.

On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe vs. Wade, the landmark case that legalized abortion at the federal level. The issue is now the purview of state legislatures.

More than 125 people attended this year's dinner Saturday night at St. Barbara Catholic Church at 2813 Lincoln Way NW.

"We are here to celebrate the overturning of Roe vs. Wade," Stark County Right to Life President Mary Kring said to applause.

Kring noted that 63 million abortions have been performed in the U.S. since 1973, and that cases in Ohio and for Stark County residents increased in 2020. According to the Ohio Department of Health, 20,605 abortions were performed in the state in 2020. Stark County has no abortion clinics.

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Keynote speaker Peter Range, the new executive director of Ohio Right to Life, told the audience that the fight against abortion is no less diminished. Range previously served as director of the Catholic Diocese of Toledo's Office for Life and Justice of Catholic Charities.

"This is momentous," he said. "This is what we've been working for, for 50 years. Roe vs. Wade is dead."

'This is a God-sized path right now.'

Range told the audience that because the issue reverts back to the states, the fight continues. After Ohio Attorney Geneneral David Yost recently moved to dissolve an injunction against the state's 2019 Heartbeat Bill, a Hamilton County judge issued a two-week stay against the bill, which would outlaw abortions at six weeks gestation.

"So it should come to us as no surprise that the fight is continuing," he said. "With the amount of money the abortion industry has right now, I mean one Planned Parenthood in Cincinnati received a gift from Jeff Bezos' former wife for $75 million. I mean, the odds we're up against folks, this is a God-sized path right now."

People need to spread the anti-abortion message in the culture and society, he said.

Range cited his father, who was partially paralyzed from polio at 11, then paralyzed a second time as adult; a side effect from medication, and how his parents' marriage was a model for his own.

Range and his wife have five children; one is deceased.

"Yes to the covenant of commitment," he said. "It was this call, no matter what condition we found ourselves in, despite the fact that my dad couldn't get up and embrace his wife of 40 years. Despite the fact that he couldn't go out and play catch with his four boys, every day my father woke up and he said, 'Yes, yes,' to life. We live in a society and culture and society that says no to life because it (child) might grow up poor or that it might be mentally challenged. We have to be a people, a church that says 'Yes, yes to life.'"

Range told the audience they must push back against the notion of "false mercies" found in such acts as euthanasia, changing the definition of marriage and allowing young children to choose their gender.

"The story of our faith is about a God who took on the worst imaginable suffering," he said. "But he turned that suffering and pain and evil into our hope for eternal life, meaning that every experience we go through has redemptive value. I don't know what you're struggling with. I don't know your cross, but don't run from it because it's through the cross and only through the cross by which we attain eternal life."

'There wouldn't be abortion if the church spoke up.'

Range also urged the audience to practice love even when they are rejected by abortion-rights activists. He shared his own experience of praying for a doctor who performed abortions, despite the doctor's initial and profane rejections to his offers to pray.

"I reached out to the abortionist because I wanted him to know that he too was made in the image of God despite what he was doing," Range said. I wanted him to know he was loved. I didn't consider myself better than him because I was on the other side."

The physician was later arrested for child pornography, Range said.

Range also talked about befriending a young women who was considering an abortion but changed her mind when he and his wife offered to help her, including adopting the baby. He said the woman changed her mind and kept the child, giving her son Range's name "Peter" for a middle name.

Range also urged those present to share their faith. and to take part in such events as 40 Days For Life, which begins on Sept. 28, and the Ohio March for Life on Oct. 5 in Columbus.

"There wouldn't be abortion if the church spoke up," Range said to applause. "Our pastors, our priests have not been preaching the gospel of life."

He also challenged people to find their purpose and mission and embrace it.

"You have been born into this time period in history for purpose and a mission," he said. "The mission is to say yes, yes, yes to life. That mission is to fight with everything we have. There is no greater battle in this country, in this world today that letting God's little children live, and I say, we fulfill the mission."

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Prior to the dinner, a group of about a dozen abortion-rights protesters wielding signs and flags occupied the sidewalk in front of the church. A couple of protesters and members from Right to Life engaged in brief conversation, but no one's mind was changed.

"The reason we came out tonight is because Right to Life has been picketing our Planned Parenthood for more than 30 years, and we thought turnabout was fair play," said Craig Covey of Jackson Township.

Paul Crowley, an anti-abortion activist who ministers to the homeless, was given the Stark County Right to Life 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Craig Covey's name and where he lives.

Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com.

On Twitter: @cgoshayREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Stark County Right to Life celebrates end of Roe vs Wade