More than 30 pro-life supporters gathered at the Tucumcari Cemetery on Sunday, Jan. 23 to observe the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade in which the Supreme Court legalized abortions in America.

Those attending shared their deep concern over the harm that abortion is causing, feeling that women and men who are facing such a difficult time in their lives deserve a better response, a positive, loving and supportive solution. A solution that recognizes the innate dignity and needs of each person involved, the mother, the father and the baby.

Mother Teresa stated, “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”

The event was sponsored by the Quay County Chapter of Right to Life who shared the following information:

• There have been over 52,008,665 abortions in America since 1973, which equates to over 1,000,000 each year. Every year more unborn children die from abortion than Americans died in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War l and ll, the Korean, Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars combined.

• 350 women have died from abortions. Abortion harms women; it has many potential physically and psychologically damaging side effects.

• The majority of Americans (62%) oppose abortion for social reasons which account for 93% of abortions, oppose late term abortions and do not want their taxes used to pay for them.

Most alarming is the continuing increase rate in late term abortions.

• New medical research has shown that babies after 20 weeks of age feel pain acutely. Doctors performing fetal surgery at and after 20 weeks now routinely use fetal anesthesia.

Currently Right to Life is gathering signatures to petition the New Mexico Legislature to enact the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act that was successfully passed into law in Nebraska last October. This law would limit abortions to being performed before 20 weeks of gestation.