Pro-Life Action League National Director Joe Scheidler was the keynote speaker at the annual Springfield (Illinois) Right to Life banquet Friday, September 23. Scheidler also received the Msgr. John Spreen Warrior Award for his courage in the battle against abortion.
Msgr. Spreen was an outspoken defender of the sanctity of life. During one of his homilies he once played a recording of the “Diary of the Unborn Child.” Some members of the congregation got up and walked out. But Monsignor went ahead and played the recording at each Mass that day, and each time several people walked out.
Springfield Right to Life honors him by presenting three awards each year in his name: The Statesman Award to a pro-life political figure, The Rosebud Award to a behind-the-scenes worker and the Warrior Award to a courageous leader.
Joe and I drove to Springfield early on Friday to spend the day at the Abraham Lincoln Museum prior to the banquet. Springfield Right to Life president Merle King and his wife Betty served as our hosts for lunch and the tour of the museum. The Lincoln Museum is well worth a trip to Springfield and would make a wonderful field trip for students of any age who are fascinated by American history.
One exhibit on the Civil War includes a large map showing the territory of the Union and of the Confederacy. In four minutes the map changes with the progression of battles. As the war moves through the months and years, a tally on the lower right side of the screen counts the casualties of the war, rising by the thousands, bringing to mind the ever escalating numbers of aborted babies in the current war on the unborn.
An exhibit on slavery features an African family torn apart by the sale of members of the family, as well as replicas of chains and manacles used on slaves. In his talk at the banquet, Scheidler referenced the inhumanity of slavery as shown in the museum and predicted that the day will come in American history when people will look on abortion the same way they now view slavery—immoral, inhumane and unthinkable.