The Celebrate Life Day event on April 10, focused on protecting the rights of all, especially unborn children.
The event started with a prayer breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. at the Doubletree Hotel’s ballroom in Tallahassee, with 150 people gathered to hear the many speakers concerned with life.
The co-sponsors joined in unity for life included Florida Right to Life, Florida Baptist Children’s Home, Pregnancy and Family Resource Alliance, The International House of Prayer, Personhood Florida, A Cry without a Voice, Catholic Charities, Faith Freedom Coalition and Bound 4 Life.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, opened the event via Skype, and began by welcoming all the participants and the co-hosts with his remarks from his hometown of Miami.
After discussing how social, moral and economic well being are inextricably linked, Rubio concluded by urging his audience to continue the fight to protect the unborn.
“I encourage all of you to continue to talk about the moral and social issues,” Rubio said. “But also discuss those most vulnerable, the unborn, who can’t speak for themselves. They cannot hire a lawyer, they cannot vote, but who are just as worthy of the same protections of our laws.”
Will Weatherford, the current Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, was the keynote speaker for the breakfast with his topic focusing on passage of all the upcoming pro-life bills.
“There are times in history when man’s law has come into conflict with God’s law,” Weatherford said. “Let me give an example of that. About 150 years ago, there was a scourge upon the United States of America. It was called slavery.”
“There was a vicious debate taking place all across America about whether slavery should be legal, whether new states coming into this country should be able to erase it or not. If you can admit that it is morally and unjustifiably wrong, that means we are out of alignment with God’s law. God’s law is superior to man’s law.”
Two of the general abortion bills before the Florida legislature are SB 162 and HB 59, known as the “Offenses Against Unborn Children Act.” These bills are a legislative response to public pressure after what happened to Florida resident Remee Jo Lee.
Lee’s former boyfriend, Andrew Welden, allegedly gave her a bottle of the abortion-inducing pills, Cytotec, after disguising the pills as antibiotics, causing her to chemically abort her baby. Lee has since worked tirelessly to prompt lawmakers to pass legislation making such actions against Florida law.
Lee described her ordeal with being tricked by her former boyfriend into aborting her baby.
“Last year my world was turned upside down when my baby was stolen from me,” Lee said, gasping for breath through her many tears. “Easter Sunday was the day they told me that I was losing my baby. My life has never been the same since.”
Weldon was tried in federal court for product tampering and first-degree murder under a federal law that protects unborn children against violence in conjunction with another criminal offense.
The other general abortion bills before the Florida legislature are SB 918 and HB 1047, and are known as the “Unborn Viability Protection Act” or the “Termination of Pregnancies” bill. SB 918 passed easily in the Florida Senate on April 8.