October is Respect Life Month, during which many pro-life organizations hold events and fundraisers.
Three Newman Club officers and one additional student attended the annual Celebrate Life Banquet on Tuesday, Sept. 30, at the Radisson Hotel Harrisburg in Camp Hill. This dinner, which featured Bishop Ronald Gainer as this year’s keynote speaker, raises funds in support of pro-life efforts in the state of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State Representative Jerry Stern, who represented the 80th district for twenty-two years, and Delores Euker, a local pro-life activist, both received awards at the event. Stern received the 2014 Pennsylvania Pro-Life Leadership award in thanks for his pro-life efforts, while Euker received the 2014 Pennsylvania Pro-Life Lifetime Achievement Award for her decades of work in the Pro-Life Movement.
Karen Bruskewicz, Elizabethtown College’s new director of Catholic campus ministry, discussed the Newman Club’s participation in Pennsylvania Respect Life Month activities.
The next pro-life event being held in the area is the 2014 Walk for Life at Harrisburg City Island in Harrisburg on Oct. 11.
The walk advertises itself as a “family event,” and will include an 8:30 a.m. pancake breakfast and entertainment for children such as free rides on the City Island Railroad and Carousel and music. The Walk begins at 10 a.m.
This walk is in support of Morning Star Pregnancy Services. These centers are located around Central Pennsylvania and offer pregnancy testing and care, abortion information, free ultrasounds and STD testing and treatment.
Morning Star also offers information regarding sex, prenatal development and relationships, as well as assistance to people who have had abortions and clients who may not have the supplies needed to support a child. The organization aided more than 3,400 individuals this past year. The organization’s goal is to offer other options to the 2,700 people each year in the Harrisburg area who get abortions.
As far as future pro-life events near campus go, Bruskewicz said that there will be a march either the night of Jan. 21 or directly coinciding with the March for Life on Jan. 22. The March for Life is a pro-life march in Washington D.C. to raise awareness and support for the cause nationwide. The Newman Club invites Etown students and members of the community to join the local march, particularly if they are unable to make it down to Washington D.C. for the main event.
Bruskewicz discussed the reasons and goals behind the Newman Club’s participation in the events. “It’s all about the dignity of the human person,” she said. She also said the goal of a pro-life supporter is “respecting the dignity of every human life from the moment of conception to natural death and everything in-between.”
According to Bruskewicz, it is important to her faith to understand each person’s right to life. Everyone deserves “that unalienable right to life that comes from God,” she said.
