While abortion opponents rallied to “celebrate life” at the Capitol last weekend, some others will “march for abolition” today outside a Denver abortion clinic – displaying starkly different approaches and a division within the movement’s ranks.

The anti-abortion activists who will gather at 10 a.m. at the Planned Parenthood at 38th Avenue and Potomac Street in the Stapleton neighborhood won’t just be sending a message to the many abortion-rights backers in today’s Denver Women’s March downtown; they also have a bone to pick with participants in last week’s pro-life rally. It’s no mere good-cop-bad-cop act but rather a substantive split over tactics.

The Stapleton event  is being staged by no-holds-barred, in-your-face, anti-abortion stalwart Colorado Right To Life. Says Right To Life’s website:

The nation’s first RTL organization, Colorado Right To Life, is embarrassed that it’s been more than a half-century since our founding, and unborn children are still being slaughtered in our communities. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion opinion Roe v. Wade, we’ve been counting up, seemingly forever, to what this year in other states is the 44th annual March for Life.

And then this:

We commit ourselves to becoming focused, not on ‘Celebrating Life,’ which abortionists themselves find ways of doing, but on actually abolishing abortion.

It’s a direct shot at last Saturday’s Celebrate Life March, which was organized by Catholic Charities of Denver and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver. That rally drew thousands, not only Catholics but also Protestants and evangelicals. Among them was a contingent from Lakewood’s Colorado Christian University,  whose president, Don Sweeting, addressed the crowd. So did Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila.

Aquila’s message was unflinchingly upbeat and non-confrontational, as reported by the Denver Catholic:

“All of that beauty that we see that surrounds us is not as beautiful as looking on the face of a newborn child … I invite all of you to celebrate these gifts more fervently and wholeheartedly. To look around you and not to dwell on the darkness that we find ourselves in, but to dwell on the light – the light of Christ.”

In an e-missive to the public on Friday touting CCU students’ participation in last week’s rally, university Vice President of Public Policy Jeff Hunt criticized Planned Parenthood and praised President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for expressing solidarity on the abortion issue. No mention of today’s Colorado Right To Life gathering.