MUSCATINE, Iowa — Candlelight danced on the faces of more than 30 people, young and old, who attended the Pro-Life Memorial Day rally Monday night on the lawn of Muscatine City Hall.

The Muscatine Right to Life chapter hosted the event, which included prayer and pro-life stories from several guest speakers.

“We want to keep speaking with others and let them know the importance of human life,” said Rudy Schellekens, director of Muscatine Right to Life.

The Muscatine gathering was part of a nationwide series of events held for Pro-Life Memorial Day. The day was chosen to coincide with the U.S. Supreme Court’s new term, which also began Monday.

Pro-lifers across the nation chose this day to mourn the victims of abortion, which is described as “America’s hidden Holocaust” by the Right to Life group. Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton in 1973, millions of babies have been surgically and medically aborted — millions more have been killed chemically.

According to the American Life League Web site www.prolifememorialday.com., this “staggering death toll” is the direct result of the Supreme Court’s decisions.

Dr. Claudia Frye, a Unity HealthCare pediatrician, gave her medical perspective of abortion.

“In my practice I see so many misguided youth that don’t grasp the reality of abortion,” Frye said. “Some teens equate (abortion) as missing a period.”

Frye said that everyone should understand that the abortion pill, Mifepristone, also known as RU-486, takes away what the baby needs to survive.

“The baby slowly dies in the womb,” she added.

Surgical abortion is blatantly “surgically assaulting a baby to the point of death, then removing that baby,” she said.

Frye stressed that neither is pain free for the mother or the baby.

Frye sees many young girls who are sexually active and suffer from depression. According to her, 85% of those girls have had an abortion.

“The problem, they think, is solved. The problem is far from solved for the rest of this young girl’s life,” Frye said. She added that teens need more education about pregnancies and abusive relationships, something in which many of these girls who choose abortion are involved.

Frye teared up as she spoke about having seen many newborn babies suffering and dying of natural causes at birth.

She doesn’t believe that selective abortion — where a parent opts to abort a child because a physical or mental defect is detected  by amniocentesis — is an appropriate way to deal with illness or dysfunction.

“A fetus is a human being. For some reason the Supreme Court refuses to recognize that,” said Pastor Ray Oehme of The Vineyard Church, Muscatine. “It’s important that you not give up your Catholicism over this.”

Oehme said that people should live by the rights that come from an unchanging God, rather than the arbitrary beliefs of the court system.

Oehme said that because the unborn do not have human rights, the consequences of abortion devalue human life altogether under the guise of women’s choice.