Speakers at this year’s Iowa Prayer Rally for Life, including Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa Senate president Amy Sinclair, encouraged a large gathering of pro-life champions to continue their efforts to preserve life from conception to natural death.
The rally, sponsored by a coalition of pro-life leaders that includes The FAMiLY Leader, Pulse Life Advocates, Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, Iowa Catholic Conference, Iowa Right to Life, Dubuque County Right to Life, the Thomas More Society, included exhibitors and pro-life resources, which offered information and meaningful ways for individuals to become more involved in the cause.
Danny Carroll, who lobbies for The FAMiLY Leader, welcomed Iowans from across the state to the rally, setting the tone by citing the Scripture that “we walk by faith and not by sight.”
Quoting Isaiah 7:9, Carroll said, “‘If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.’ Let us be mindful of that as we continue to fight to protect the unborn.”
State Rep. Jon Dunwell, a Newton Republican and the FAMiLY Leader’s director of outreach and engagement, told the crowd that he and 20 other House members were filing a bill to protect the unborn from conception. The measure “declares elective abortion illegal, prohibiting any intentional act to end the life of an innocent child in the womb.”
“It strengthens our feticide laws, making the deliberate taking of unborn life a Class A felony, ensuring justice for the voiceless,” he said. “No more loopholes based on consent or trimesters. Life begins at conception and Iowa must defend it. ”
Dunwell—who told the Newton News last month that he will not seek re-election this year as he focuses more attention on his pastoring duties at the Gateway Church in Monroe and his increasing elections and policy responsibilities later this year at The FAMiLY Leader—said the proposal “promotes healing, not harm and offers exceptions only for true medical emergencies to save the mother’s life while shielding women from prosecution while focusing on those who exploit vulnerability.”
Noting that “prayers change hearts,” Reynolds thanked the warriors for life in the audience and urged them to continue to pray for an end to abortions.
“We gather not in protest but in prayer, not in anger but in hope, and not in judgment but in love for life – every life, at every stage,” she said. “We believe that life is a gift from God, created with purpose, dignity, and infinite worth. Scripture reminds us that each person is beautifully and wonderfully made and that truth calls us to protect life, care for one another and stand in the gap with those who cannot speak for themselves.”
Sinclair spoke directly to women in the audience, telling them that it is “a great time to be alive but it’s also sort of a strange time to be alive as a woman.”
She noted that women are outpacing men in education, own more businesses and homes than ever, have the “financial wherewithal to be whoever we want to be,” and hold many of Iowa’s top elected offices.
“We are truly living in the moment when women can have it all,” Sinclair said. “Yet at the same time we’re told that an unplanned pregnancy is unmanageable as it will ruin our life. We’re told we can, indeed, have it all but … being a mother will rob us of everything we worked for rather than adding to it.”
She added, “We’re made to feel that the one physiological opportunity available only to us – bringing human life into existence – is the one thing that we shouldn’t be doing if we truly want to be a woman. I assure you that’s not true. Let’s take back our narrative, women. Let’s start telling women that doing the one thing that is uniquely female is a privilege and not a chore. It’s not a curse. Let’s support them while they do it, whether it’s an unplanned pregnancy or a planned pregnancy.”
Other speakers included Maggie DeWitte of Pulse Life Advocates; Trisha Wilson, executive director of Pregnancy Resource of the Quad Cities; and Breanne Newberg, who suffered intense physical pain after an abortion as a college student and years of emotional anguish.
