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Steubenville, OH — At the annual March for Life,  “we are not only exercising our American right to protest, but also our duty as pro-life Catholics,” says Annie Babcock, the coordinator of Franciscan University of Steubenville’s presence at this coming year’s March for Life, to be held Friday, January 27, 2017, in Washington, D.C.

Uniquely, Franciscan’s presence at the March for Life is entirely student-run and student-led. The University’s Students for Life club organizes participation in the annual event.

This year, nearly 500 students will travel on buses organized by Students for Life. Hundreds more students, faculty, staff, and alumni are expected to travel to the march by car, bringing the total number of Franciscan-affiliated March attendees to 800.

Franciscan University president Father Sean O. Sheridan, TOR, along with other Franciscan TOR priests and religious sisters, will march with students under Franciscan’s iconic green banner, which reads, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born, I dedicated you” (Jer. 1:5).

Babcock, a senior biology major from Maryland, said students should go to the March for Life not only to protest legalized abortion, but also to gather with thousands of other pro-life Americans to become motivated to be “actively pro-life on a regular basis.”

After an on-campus holy hour on Thursday night, students will board buses and arrive in Washington, D.C., by 7:30 a.m. for Mass at the  Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The principal celebrant and homilist will be Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans.

From there, the students will converge on the National Mall with hundreds of other groups from around the country for the annual March for Life Rally and the march itself, which will end at the U.S. Supreme Court building.

The theme of this year’s March is “The Power of One.”