March for Life, a march dedicated to illegalizing abortion, took place at the National Mall in Washington D.C. Jan 27. The annual march was pushed back from its original Jan. 22 date due to the chaos from the transition and the incoming administration and the Women’s March Jan. 21.

The March for Life was started by anti-abortion activist Nellie Grey and has occurred every year since the supreme court ruling that legalized abortion in Roe v. Wade in 1973.This year’s march drew an estimated 485,000 people, including multiple RHS students.

RHS students came out with various groups, including with their families and religious organizations. One organization is the St. Patrick’s Catholic Parish youth group, which came out in order to demonstrate their support for the Catholic Church’s anti-abortion teachings.

Recently, RHS members of the St. Patrick’s youth group, led by junior Aryana Dadpay, came together and formed the first ever anti-abortion club at RHS, called Rams for Life, sponsored by

history teacher Kevin Bernot.

“A few weeks ago, I attended the annual March For Life in D.C. with other club members in order to protest this injustice against the weakest members of our society,” Dadpay said.

There were many prominent speakers at the march, ranging from professional athletes, such as Baltimore Ravens tight end Benjamin Watson, all the way to the Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence. Pence’s appearance was very significant as it was the first time a sitting president or vice president has spoken at the event in person. Furthermore, Pence outlined the steps that the new Trump administration would take to reduce the number abortions in the U.S.

and eventually overturn Roe v. Wade.

Junior Michael Jacobsen, who attended the march, thought there were many inspirational speakers, however the one that was most inspirational to him was Utah representative Mia Love.

“She talked about how her parents were very impoverished and had originally considered aborting her, but they decided to give her a chance and she turned into the first Republican African-American congresswoman in history,” Jacobsen said.

The Pro-Life club will now try to convey its message to students and teachers throughout and attempt to convince them to support life as well.

“I started the pro-life “Rams For Lifea�� club here at Rockville because I care a lot about human rights issues, and I didn’t want to stand by silently as millions of innocent people are killed annually as a result of abortion, assisted suicide, and being refugees with nowhere to go,” Dadpay said. “I wanted to spread the word of the pro-life movement which is that human life has value at any stage, age, race or gender.”