Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The Capitol sees many rallies throughout the year, but Tuesday’s Illinois Right to Life event is one of the biggest.

Former State Rep. and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Jeanne Ives (pictured) decried Illinois’ status as an abortion haven and Gov. JB Pritzker’s creation of a nationwide abortion rights group, Think Big America. She called Pritzker “the biggest pro-abort governor in the United States.”

She told the story of her determination to carry a doomed fetus to term, despite a doctor’s advice to abort. Mark Anthony Ives lived 45 minutes.

Counterdemonstrators across Second Street chanted, “Abortion is health care,” and Springfield Catholic Bishop Thomas John Paprocki said that group needs our prayers, too.

The keynote speaker, an OB-GYN from Indiana, said, “Pregnancy is not an illness, and abortion is not health care.”

A spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Springfield estimated Tuesday’s crowd at 2,000.

WEATHER UPDATES: Click here for seven-day and hour-by-hour Springfield weather forecasts.