North Syracuse, NY - About 150 people quietly held anti-abortion signs along a quarter-mile stretch of South Main Street in the village of North Syracuse Sunday afternoon as many passing motorists honked their horns. “It reminds people that life is important and we should do everything we can to prolong it and protect it,” said Paul Shaver, coordinator of...
Cindy Rinella of Cicero, at right, holds a sign protesting abortion at an anti-abortion rally that drew about 150 people on South Main Street in North Syracuse on Sunday afternoon. The quiet protest stretched for a quarter mile along the village street. “It reminds people that life is important and we should do everything we can to prolong it and protect it,” said Paul Shaver, coordinator of the 22nd annual Central New York Life Chain demonstration sponsored by the Syracuse Right to Life Association.
Christians of all ages and denominations held signs that read, “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart,” “Stop Abortion Now” and “Adoption Not Abortion” to raise awareness on national Respect Life Sunday.
About an hour later, four politicians against abortion — congressional candidate Ann Marie Buerkle and state Assembly candidates Rick Guy, Christina Fadden Fitch and Donald Miller — spoke to the demonstrators inside St. Rose of Lima Church.
During the Life Chain demonstration, retired third-grade teacher Cindy Rinella, of Cicero, said the rosary while holding a sign showing a baby’s face and “Face It. Abortion Kills.”
“You need to put a face to it. You really do,” Rinella said. “Some people are still confused. They think it’s a clump of tissue and not a human being. I think when you put a face to it, it shows that it’s a real baby; a real human being.”
Pat Covino, 41, of Lyncourt, attended the event with his wife, mother-in-law and two sons, Joseph, 6, and Paul, 2 months, “just to awake people’s consciousness. A lot of people don’t have a well-informed conscience so they don’t realize the gravity of the sin of abortion,” Covino said. “Abortion is an immoral evil.”
Shaver said more than 50 million abortions have been performed in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 overturned state laws banning abortion, in Roe v. Wade.
Louis Ragonese, who organized the local March for Life event earlier this year and attended Sunday’s Life Chain, said about 24,000 unborn babies are aborted every week in the United States.
“There are all sorts of reasons and excuses to why these babies are taken and the main theme is it’s an inconvenience to the mother,” said Ragonese, a Clay resident who has seven children and 14 grandchildren. “But there are many things in life that are inconvenient and we usually face those inconveniences and deal with them because we see them.”
Catie O’Toole can be reached at cotoole@syracuse.com or 470-2134.