Song of their lives

A local Christian rock band offers an anti-abortion anthem as the annual Roe v. Wade protest in Washington D.C. nears

Twenty-four years ago, Natasha Manassy, 23, of Harveys Lake said, her parents were young, poor, unwed and serving in the military.

They’d also just learned her mom was pregnant – with her.

“They had every reason to” consider abortion, Manassy said, but they didn’t. They gave up their dream of traveling the world, got married and raised her.

“I admire them so much. I am so thankful,” Manassy said earlier this week as she settled in for a night of rehearsal with The A.W.E. Band at High Point Church in Larksville.

The Christian rock group recently recorded “Curse of Blood,” a song members hope will persuade women to seek alternatives to abortions.

“I really labored over the lyrics,” said Mike Warner, 47, of Dallas, who wrote the song inspired in part by affection for his 5-year-old nephew, Nicky, who was born with Down syndrome.

“Nine out of 10 babies with Down syndrome are aborted,” Warner said. “But a human life is a human life, a soul made in the image of God.”

Warner will get no argument from the demonstrators who journey to Washington, D.C., today for the 37th annual March for Life, which protests the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

“We have to stand up for the rights of the unborn,” said Chris Calore, vice president of the Wyoming Valley Chapter of Pennsylvanians for Human Life. “Not only the unborn but the disabled and elderly, everyone who is vulnerable.”

Calore, 56, of Wilkes-Barre, said his group has two buses leaving for Washington, D.C., this morning.

“Last year, we had 300,000 people in Washington, and this year it could well be more,” he said. “We have high hopes that someday abortion will be outlawed.”

On the other side of the debate, Planned Parenthood of Northeast and Mid-Penn on Thursday e-mailed to a reporter a statement about the organization’s concerns that “this landmark victory for women’s rights is under attack.”

Noting that 98 percent of its services “reduce the need for abortion,” the statement said Planned Parenthood remains “committed to ensuring that women who need this service have legal access to safe and affordable procedures” and insisted proposed health-care reform must ensure abortions are covered, along with other medical procedures.

Abortion foes, meanwhile, are adamant that proposed health-care reforms not allow federal funds to pay for abortions.

As A.W.E. drummer Dan Close sees it, abortion is something Americans tend to consider all too casually.

“My wife and I had a baby last year – Elijah was born in April – and when you reach a certain age they do all those extra tests,” said Close, 36, of Shavertown. “The doctor said if anything is wrong you can always terminate. It just shocked me the way it rolled out of his mouth.”

Band members aren’t attending today’s March for Life, but Warner hopes they’ll perform their song at next year’s event.

“I was in touch with Nellie Gray, the organizer of the whole March for Life, and she said she’s definitely interested in having us perform,” Warner said. “It was too late for this year, because she already had a group from Liberty University.

“She said she’s looking for a song that could be the rallying anthem for the pro-life movement,” he said.

“Curse of Blood,” which features the voices of Manassy, Warner’s wife, Denise, and the couple’s 16-year-old daughter, Cathryn, on such lyrics as “Silent she cries for choices she has made” and “My God, what have we done?” has been getting attention from places as far flung as Texas and California.

People have been downloading the music from www.aweband.com or ordering the “Declarations” CD.

“It’s just wonderful music,” Analee Tegeler, 52, a grandmother from Ganado, Texas, said in a telephone interview. “I listened and I was hooked.”

She finds its lyrics haunting, and hopes it leads women with crisis pregnancies to consider adoption or accepting baby-care supplies from charitable groups.

In the Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvanians for Human Life has a similar message, President Betty Caffrey said.

Through its office on Hanover Street in Wilkes-Barre, she said, “We have maternity clothes, baby clothes, layettes, cribs, high chairs and all our services are free,” she said. “We’ll pay for ultrasound if you need one. We have volunteers who will drive a girl to the hospital and stay with her during labor.

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