Two leaders in the evangelical community are urging Christians to participate in the upcoming March for Life in Washington, D.C., arguing that 2016 will be an important year for pro-life issues.
According to a report from CBN, Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), and Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, held a press conference Wednesday to announce the first annual Evangelicals for Life conference that will be hosted at the Hyatt Regency in Washington on Jan. 21-22.
The conference will feature over 20 Evangelical and pro-life speakers including Moore, Daly, and Pastor David Platt, and will cover an array of abortion-related topics, adoption, foster care, disability care, human trafficking, and end-of-life issues.
During the press conference, Moore and Daly expressed hope that the conference will encourage more evangelicals to attend the March for Life, which is held each January in an effort to draw attention to a reported 57 million abortions performed in the United States since 1973. In the past, the march has traditionally seen primarily Catholic participation.
"Given the strong pro-life witness of evangelical churches around this country we need to be present here and join arms with our allies on this issue," Moore explained.
"I don't want any fewer Roman Catholics at the March for Life, but we need evangelicals to be present there as well," he added.
Daly echoed Moore's sentiments in stating, "The Catholic community has been the ones to go to the March for Life and participate on the mall, listen to the speakers, to galvanize annually the support for life."
"Evangelicals have read about it in the newspaper and heard about it in the news, but I don't think that we have shown that kind of commitment to come together in a location where people can add their voice to the other voices talking about the life movement," he added.
However, he said he is encouraged by the growing number of young people who hold pro-life beliefs, saying that technology has greatly contributed to their understanding of the dignity of the unborn.
The two men argued that 2016 will likely be an important year for pro-life issues -- especially with the presidential election just around the corner -- making evangelicals' support and participation in the annual event all the more necessary.
"God is doing remarkable things in communities when it comes to standing up for unborn children and their moms," Moore said. "Evangelicals need to be in conversation with all of those different groups. This event helps to put many of them into that context. It also helps to put people together with various things that are happening, even with Evangelicals all over the country."
As reported by the Gospel Herald, the Supreme Court is preparing to hear its first major abortion case in nearly a decade. The case, which arises from a challenge to new Texas regulations covering clinics and physicians that perform abortions, is expected to have broad political repercussions in a presidential election year.
To learn more about Evangelicals for Life, visit their website.
