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Friday, March 29, 2024

Local teens to attend national March for Life in Washington, D.C.

Susan Klemond for The Catholic Spirit

Hill-Murray School senior Katy Goerke was against abortion before she really knew what it was. While she was in utero, she was incorrectly diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a genetic chromosome disorder. Before the right diagnosis was made, Goerke wasn’t expected to live long after birth and her mother’s doctor suggested an abortion.

Attending last year’s March for Life in Washington, D.C., helped Goerke combine her personal experience with the broader pro-life movement and find up-to-date information she could bring back to share with her peers. Now Goerke, the founder of the Maplewood school’s pro-life club, is going back as part of the second annual archdiocese-led youth trip to the march that will be held Jan. 19 to 24.

“I’m going again and trying to bring back more experiences to explain to the juniors in my school’s pro-life club how big of a deal this is,” said Goerke, who will be one of 160 youth from five area Catholic high schools and eight parish youth groups attending the march.

The march and other events help equip youth in pro-life apologetics and energize them to bring their experiences back to their parishes, said Sharon Wilson, respect life coordinator for the archdiocese’s Office of Marriage Family and Life.

“In general the youth really get the pro-life message,” said Wilson, who will go on the archdiocese’s trip with her son.

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Providence Academy senior Miranda Eastham said she was invigorated by seeing so many youth at the march last year and came back wanting to do more for the pro-life movement. “It made me realize that it’s not adequate to just call yourself pro-life without doing anything about  it,” she said.

As president of the Plymouth school’s pro-life club, she said she looks forward to finding out what is new at a student-organized conference so she can help encourage and educate other youth, including the other members of her club.

“It’s easy for young people in particular to not be exposed to something like this,” she said. “But I think it’s important to, because we are the generation that can stop [abortion]. It’s important to know what’s going on.”

 


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