On Monday, some 500 university students from Steubenville, Ohio, will board a line of charter busses bound for the nation’s capital, where they hope to bear witness to the sanctity of human life.

Two days of pro-life activities at the school will commence with a prayer vigil on the evening of Sunday, January 22nd, marking the thirty-third anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision which legalized abortion in the U.S.

The service will include a presentation by pro-life activist Liz Brown, who will speak personally about the pain caused by her own abortion, as well as a candlelit procession to the campus’s “Tomb of the Unborn Child.”

Tom Sofio, spokesman for the school, said that around midnight, students will board the busses to join thousands of other pro-life advocates in Washington D.C. for Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and the annual March for Life.

Likewise, Tom McFadden, Director of Admissions for Christendom College in Virginia noted that the entire student body and faculty of that school will make the short trip east to the capital, where they will join March as well.

Organizers have noticed a marked increase in the number of young people attending the March in recent years, as more colleges and college groups, many inspired by the late John Paul II, have begun voiced their own disdain for what the late Pope coined as “the culture of death.