Mary Kate Zander, president of Illinois Right to Life, says the march will feature state and local leaders, as well as people from out of state.
"We do sometimes get regional pro-lifers coming down from Wisconsin or coming up from Missouri just because our laws do affect the whole region. We’re looking forward to a pretty big diverse crowd this year."
Zander says Illinois has become an abortion hub, which is why it is important to get out the pro-life message.
"We know that there are women traveling into Illinois to receive abortions at pretty high rates and it's certainly those drivable states, you know, Missouri, Wisconsin, Tennessee, but we also get women from as far as Texas coming up to Illinois. It sounds crazy but I think even flying like Southwest these days is cheaper than it would be to travel to the nearest state for some of these women. So, yeah, it's honestly, it's a national hub.”
There are partial abortion bans in Missouri and Wisconsin, more stringent ones in Tennessee and Texas.
Zander believes the abortion industry has promoted Illinois as an abortion destination.
“They started that process before Roe v Wade was overturned just because they saw the writing on the wall with Trump's presidency, and here we're for sure an abortion hub for the whole country."
Key legislation debated in Illinois
While the march takes place, pro-lifers will be keeping an eye on a physician assisted suicide bill making its way through the Illinois legislature.
"In terms of abortion legislation, one of the pieces that has come up recently that we're hearing people talk about at the national level is a bill that actually makes it an act of terrorism to attack an abortion clinic."
Zander says pro-lifers oppose violence in any shape or form, but the other side are not willing to have the same standard for anyone attacking a pro-life pregnancy center.
"They're not willing to you know hold those same standards across the board."
Zander believes it says more about them than it does about pro-lifers.
"Obviously, they put the stuff out there it's like a solution without a problem. They like to write this narrative that pro-lifers are you know terrorists, that we're terrorizing women and that's just not at all the case. So those are kind of the things that we're seeing in the legislature right now."
