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On a March for Life

Tri-Lakers share stories behind why they attended abortion protest in D.C.

Lisa Reed of Tupper Lake and her granddaughter Kaitlyn Rabideau, a sophomore at Tupper Lake High School, took this selfie atop the steps of the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. on Jan. 27 during the 44th annual March For Life. (Photo provided — Lisa Reed)

Lisa Reed waited years to attend the annual March For Life in Washington, D.C., until her granddaughter had the opportunity to go with her.

In Reed’s eyes, this 500-mile pilgrimage by bus to the nation’s capital on Jan. 27 was a full-circle moment for her and her granddaughter Kaitlyn Rabideau, both from Tupper Lake.

Rabideau is 16, the same age her mother Jessica Stevens was in 2000 when she gave birth to her. She was born on March 10, 2000, at a mere 23 weeks and two days into her mother’s pregnancy, weighing all of one pound.

It was her survival and growth into a healthy person that changed her grandmother’s opinion on abortion.

“I guess that was a big turning point for me,” Reed said of Rabideau’s birth. “I always said abortion was not for me, but I always said it’s really not my place to decide for another woman what she should do with her body. Now I kind of look at it different.”

Colleen Miner and her daughter Ellen hold up an anti-Planned Parenthood sign before the 44th annual March For Life in Washington D.C. on Jan. 27. (Photo provided — Colleen Miner)

There the grandmother and granddaughter were that early Friday afternoon at the Washington Monument, looking on from the side of the stage at Vice President Mike Pence, one week into office, who proclaimed, “Life is winning in America.”

Pence’s presence at the anti-abortion march gave it a bigger feel in its 44th year, taking place every year since 1974 in the wake of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal. But so did the political climate surrounding Donald Trump’s inauguration a week prior.

This year’s march came on the heels of the first-ever Women’s March on Washington six days prior, hours after Trump was sworn in. The Women’s March was anchored in the same location as March for Life and partnered with Planned Parenthood — the nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health services to women, including an estimated 300,000-plus abortions a year.

The Women’s March drew more than 500,000 people to D.C., including hundreds from the North Country, and an estimated 5 million at related marches worldwide, including several in the North Country.

With Trump’s inauguration scheduled for Friday, Jan. 20, the March For Life was bumped to the following Friday. During inauguration years, the National Park Service assigns the next day possible for the annual pro-life march, which partners with the NPS.

Lisa Reed of Tupper Lake stands beside her granddaughter Kaitlyn Rabideau in Washington D.C. on Jan. 27 during the 44th annual March For Life. (Photo provided — Colleen Miner)

The sudden Women’s March moved into that time slot, advocating for the kind of pro-choice legislation that directly contrasts with March for Life’s primary mission.

With a heightened focus on the nation’s capital during that eight-day stretch in January, Colleen Miner of Saranac Lake described this year’s March For Life as different, a larger scene.

Miner, the Respect Life director for the Diocese of Ogdensburg, has been to many of these marches. She said she had heard as many as 600,000 people attended this year’s and added that this was the first time she’d had to go through security to access the march’s “rally point.” The crowd size, she said, resulted in some of the Diocese of Ogdensburg group having to watch Pence’s speech on a monitor outside of the security checkpoint.

“It may have been the biggest crowd I’ve marched in,” Miner said. “It just went on for hours.”

Rabideau was one of a dozen Tri-Lakes students, including six from Saranac Lake and five others from Tupper Lake, who boarded two youth buses sponsored by the Diocese of Ogdensburg. It was the 21st consecutive year a contingent from the diocese took part in the march and the 11th consecutive year youth buses brought North Country students to the nation’s capital.

Tupper Lake students, Alyssa Tarbox, Braydyn McCottery, Ben Jones and Kaitlyn Rabideau stand in front of a statue of Pope John Paul II during the Diocese of Ogdensburg’s trip to Washington D.C. for the 44th annual March For Life on Jan. 27. (Photo provided — Lisa Reed)

“I have to say, it was the best rally in 21 years,” Miner said. “Very patriotic, very Christian, very positive — there was so much hope knowing that the president is a pro-life president and saying he was going to do what he said he is going to do. It really makes us feel good about the outcome.”

But this experience hit particularly close to home for for Reed, Rabideau and their family.

Back in 2000 when Rabideau was born before her third trimester, she was classified as “previable” — not developed enough to live outside the womb. Doctors deemed her survival chances slim.

“Technically, she was a miscarriage,” Reed said. “Doctors said she had a 20-percent chance of survival at all. But she is now fully healthy.”

According to a June 2016 study by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, approximately 0.5 percent of all births occur before the third trimester of pregnancy. These early deliveries, the report says, comprise more than 40 percent of infant deaths.

Saranac Lake High School student Dillon Fezette sits beside John Miner on Jan. 27 during the Diocese of Ogdensburg’s trip to Washington D.C. for the 44th annual March For Life. (Photo provided — Colleen Miner)

But doctors and Rabideau’s family decided to deliver her. For many weeks afterward, she remained on a ventilator in the neonatal intensive care unit at Florida Hospital South in Orlando, her skin transparent for some time.

She finally went home with her mother and grandmother that August, nearly half a year after her birth.

Rabideau, now a 10th-grader at Tupper Lake High School, has always known of the nature of her birth and the odds that were stacked against her survival from the beginning. The family keeps a photo album of pictures, including ones that show her in what Reed called a “teeny” diaper. A few times at school she’s shared her story with classmates.

For her and her grandmother, this January wasn’t only their first time at the March for Life; it was their first time in the nation’s capital. They toured monuments and found the name of Reed’s cousin on the Vietnam War Memorial. Rabideau attended the March for Life youth rally at the Verizon Center along with 20,000 other teens who are pro-life, or unsure of their stance on abortion.

And at the end of the march, after the Diocese of Ogdensburg group met back up at the Library of Congress, they toured the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Saranac Lake High School student Sarah Samperi, right, marches on Jan. 27 during the 44th annual March For Life in Washington D.C. (Photo provided — Colleen Miner)

At that moment, looking back on the eventful day, Rabideau remarked to her grandmother how she was impressed with the number of people, the largest crowd she’d ever been in before. Though nervous about it, Reed said her granddaughter reflected on the march that day, her own story of birth and the full-circle nature of this experience at the same age her mother was when she gave birth to her.

Then she turned to her grandmother.

“Wow,” she said. “This really is something.”

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