About us

The Illinois Pro-Life March - formerly known as the Illinois March for Life and the Chicago March for Life - is a project of Illinois Right to Life and Illinois Right to Life Action.

While the Illinois Pro-Life March has known many names over the years, our mission has never changed: to honor the dignity of every human being regardless of race, sex, age, or ability by marching on behalf of the lives lost to Illinois’ culture of death.

For decades, Illinois pro-life activists have gathered in Chicago, Springfield, and beyond to serve as a voice for the voiceless – rallying on behalf of our state’s most vulnerable members and coming together to send a message to Illinois legislators, who continue to implement pro-death policies in Illinois that target women, children, and the chronically ill.

At the Illinois Pro-Life March, pro-life activists from every corner of the Midwest come together at the Illinois State Capitol to send a message: we will not tolerate Illinois’ extreme anti-life policies any longer. Our beautiful state – once the beloved home of President Abraham Lincoln and a national leader in the fight to honor the dignity of all humans – is now the final resting place of tens of thousands of preborn children each and every year.

We gather to say, “No more.”

our history

Marches for life have been occurring in Illinois since the early 1970s. In 2013, the late Francis Cardinal George united several pro-life organizations in Chicago and Illinois to build up the March for Life Chicago, which formed the basis for growth. Illinois Right to Life - alongside weDignify (the former lead presenter of the March for Life Chicago and the Illinois March for Life) and other core pro-life organizations across the Midwest - played a key leadership role through the early years of marching.

After the Dobbs decision on June 24, 2022, the March for Life Chicago hosted the first post-Roe March for Life in America.

In 2023 - due to the shifting focus from federal action against abortion to state action following the overturn of Roe v. Wade - the March for Life Chicago formally moved to Springfield, IL and became the Illinois March for Life. As a result of trademark obligations, the name was officially changed in 2024 to the Illinois Pro-Life March, when the Midwest’s largest pro-life march came under the helm of Illinois Right to Life and Illinois Right to Life Action - the state’s only pro-life lobbying organization.