Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Ideologies Clash Downtown

Activists From Both Sides of the Debate Protest Peacefully

DULUTH, Minn. – Lena Berthiaume has been participating in the annual march for life at the Women’s building for 4 years.

“Life begins at conception. I’m pro women. Pro women at conception,  and pro man,” says Berthiaume.

As a college aged woman, Berthiaume says her beliefs are not popular among her peers.

“It’s really different to be the one in the group that goes, ‘well actually, I’m pro-life, not pro-choice,'” she says.

But each year she attends the march with her family to stand up for what she believes in: the right to life. And she’s not alone. Dozens of men, women and children holding signs with pro-life messages marched in a circle in front of the Women’s Building with her.

“God created all of us and he created the babies. He wants us to choose life,” says Jean Janisch, who is pro-life.

The event is held on the anniversary of Roe v Wade, when the Supreme Court ruled abortions legal across the United States. Similar events happen across the country.

But pro-life messages weren’t the only ones at the scene in Duluth. Next to the march stood demonstrators, holding signs promoting reproductive rights.

“We’re here to support you whether you want to parent, whether you want to have an abortion. Or else that you want to do adoption. We just want to provide facts,” says Hayley Spohn, a Registered Nurse at the Women’s Health Center.

These pro-choice activists believe in the woman’s right to choose what is best for her body.

The Women’s Health center inside the Women’s Building where both protests are happening, is home to the only abortion provider in Northern Minnesota. So the pro-choice demonstrators say making sure this is a safe place for women seeking medical services, is crucial.

“The Women’s Health center is actually the abortion provider for all of northern Minnesota, all of northern Wisconsin, and all the U.P of Michigan, so a really important resource here in our communities,” explains Mary Cowen, an Organizer of the HOTDISH Militia, a group for Reproductive rights.

Though there was a clash of ideologies downtown, demonstrators on both sides of the debate exercised their first amendment rights peacefully.

“Even posting things on social media, I try to make it loud and clear, I am pro life,” says Berthiaume.

“What I do know is, what my belief is, and something I’m always going to support is women’s choice,” says Spohn.