Thousands of pro-life advocates gathered Wednesday around the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford for the fourth annual March for Life.
A diverse crowd that included young students and seniors, religious and laity, and black, white, Hispanic, and Asian pro-life activists – came together for a pre-rally concert, to hear the words of both national and local pro-life leaders, and to peacefully advocate for life together as they walked into the community around Bushnell Park.
Family Institute of Connecticut (FIC) co-hosted the pro-life event with the national March for Life organization and the Connecticut Catholic Conference.
FIC Executive Director Peter Wolfgang spoke with CatholicVote during the March about how the Trump administration’s pro-life policies are being felt in states like Connecticut, where pro-abortion Democrats have control of the legislature.
“For pro-lifers, what’s happening nationally since the last election is like Christmas every day!” Wolfgang said. “I’m just enjoying every minute of it!”
“The problem,” however, is that “for those of us behind enemy lines in deep-blue states, it’s having the opposite effect,” he continued. “The government of the state of Connecticut has had a pro-abortion nervous breakdown, and so they’ve reacted to the pro-life rules that are being implemented – the defunding of pro-abortion groups on the national level – by trying to shove more of Connecticut state taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood of Southern New England.”
Wolfgang said “sneaky” Connecticut Democrats have engaged in “parliamentary sleight-of-hand, in-the-dead-of-the-night kind of stuff” by passing bills that increase funding for Planned Parenthood without allowing the public to comment on the legislation.
“They just gave 4.3 million extra dollars of our state taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood in the last year,” the pro-life leader asserted. “And that’s on top of the fact that Connecticut state taxpayers are already on the hook to pay about 75% of the cost for abortions in Connecticut, and Planned Parenthood of Southern New England already sits on top of a $40 million endowment.”
“So, it’s a big political payoff to a constituent group of the majority party in our state,” Wolfgang said about the taxpayer funds pouring into Planned Parenthood in Connecticut. “It’s an outrage. It’s not how democracy should work in Connecticut or anywhere else.”
“The people ought to have a say, and so – while I’m thrilled that President Trump is doing so many wonderful pro-life things at the national level – it has increased the challenges for us here in Connecticut,” Wolfgang explained.
“Now that being said, I wouldn’t want it any other way at the national level. I mean, that’s where a lot of these battles are ultimately going to be won or lost,” he added. “And for those of us in the belly of the beast here in New England, it’s on us to hold the line and reverse the tide. So, I feel very positive about the fact that so many thousands of Connecticut pro-lifers, a very young crowd – you can see they’re very energetic that they all turned out for this today! And I think we can make our voices heard.”
During his address to the pro-life crowd, Wolfgang urged them to get involved in opposing measures in the legislature that would enshrine abortion up to birth and erase women as a sex classification in the state Constitution.
A post on X by FIC Action noted two news outlets – News 8 and the Harford Courant – provided “good reporting” on the large pro-life event, but asked why no coverage was found at Connecticut’s Hearst Media, CT Mirror, and others.
“Thousands of pro-lifers at the state capitol in a year where several abortion bills are being debated and only 2 outlets report it?” FIC Action observed.
The event coincided with the feast of Saint Joseph, the protector of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Patrick Kelly, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, spoke to the pro-life crowd about the need for men to take responsibility in their relationships with women and to become protectors of mothers and babies.
Asked about the role of men in the pro-life conversation, Wolfgang referred to Kelly as “the most important layman on the planet.”
“His message was exactly what we most need to hear,” the FIC director said. “I think men most need to hear it. I would tie Patrick’s speech with an article that appeared a few months ago in First Things by Ryan Anderson, where he made the connection between abortion and non-marital sex.”
“The reason why we have such a high level of abortion, even after Roe v. Wade, is because we live in a society where non-marital sex is expected,” Wolfgang explained. “Well, that’s something that is often initiated, begins with the men. So, Patrick’s speech, I think, ties right in with Ryan Anderson’s plan for what the pro-life movement needs to do after Dobbs.”
“You know, we often say that we are for human life from conception to natural death,” he said. “I would say, especially for those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ, and those of us who are men, that we need to be for a pro-life ethic, not just from conception to natural death, but from erection to resurrection.”
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