Since January 1974, when the primary March for Life was held in Washington, D.C., pro-life advocates and activists have gathered within the nation’s capital united around a single message: End Roe v. Wade. Last yr, it happened.
In June, the Supreme Court overturned the laws that legalized abortion nationwide, thus turning the matter over to the states. The ruling was celebrated as a decisive victory by many pro-life advocates and by others as only the beginning of the work to be done. But the choice also posed a novel query concerning the mission and direction of the March for Life, an event that was founded in direct response to Roe.
Jeanne Mancini, the president of the March for Life, said she expects within the post-Roe world the March for Life might be “far more involved in the extent of the states, where pro-life voices can have greater impact.” But she also said that the commitment to the national march will remain strong because “there continues to be a must unify people, and there is no such thing as a lack of national legislative work.” As well as, she said that abortion rights laws in Congress—just like the proposed Women’s Health Protection Act—“may impact state pro-life laws,” so continuing to attract attention to laws on the federal level stays crucial to the movement as an entire.
The march’s organizational support of state-level marches shouldn’t be a response to the repeal of Roe, nonetheless; the hassle began six years ago in response to what Ms. Mancini called “organizational discernment on what we uniquely and effectively contribute to constructing a culture of life.” She said the goal of the March for Life is to “unite, equip and mobilize pro-life Americans in the general public square.” The leaders of the national march realized that “the query we were asked greater than some other was: Are you able to help us start a march in our local area?”
President of the March for Life: “Our loftier goal for a few years has been to create a culture where abortion is unthinkable. And that culture is upstream of politics.”
The organization set about accompanying different marches and supporting them under their trademarked name. Their first official state march was held in Virginia in 2019. Ms. Mancini said she hoped for five,000 people in attendance and seven,500 showed up. March for Life sponsored five state marches in 2022: California, Connecticut, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In 2023, the organization plans to carry marches in 10 states and March for Life has hired additional staff to support these efforts.
“We’re in a recent season where the security net for moms facing unexpected pregnancies must be that much stronger,” she said. “And native and state elections might be that far more vital.”
Ms. Mancini said she hopes the march can assist direct people to the organizations “which can be working on the bottom,” like state chapters of Right to Life, Catholic conferences (through which the bishops work with state governments), and state family policy councils.
“Our loftier goal for a few years has been to create a culture where abortion is unthinkable,” she said. “And that culture is upstream of politics.” Ms. Mancini said that the repeal of Roe is “an exquisite thing,” nevertheless it’s only the start. “Our work to construct a culture of life is cut out for us.”
The theme for this yr’s March for Life is “Next Steps: Marching in a Post-Roe America.”
She said that she hopes the march can emphasize this through its various speakers. “Real life witness is powerful, and our speakers have tremendous stories to inform,” she said. Speakers are typically organized around a theme, corresponding to “Equality begins within the womb” or the stories of birth moms who selected adoption. She said the theme for this yr’s march might be “Next Steps: Marching in a Post Roe America.”
Ms. Mancini disagrees that the March for Life could be viewed as “divisive”; she also identified that it’s “the one place that brings many alternative people and various groups inside the pro-life movement together.”
Recommitting to Women
Kristen Day, the manager director of Democrats for Lifetime of America, also stated that the political diversity within the march signifies that maintaining a unified message is essential. “I feel we will all work together on supporting pregnant women,” she said, adding that folks can unite around the concept that we want to “support women so no women should see abortion is their only selection. We don’t all need to agree on how we offer those resources, but all of us can advocate for those resources in our own way.”
Ms. Day believes that “the state rallies are hugely vital” and that “the activity and actions within the states is where the motion is all going to be.” She said that Democrats for Life desires to work with Virginia’s Gov. Glenn Youngkin on a 15-week abortion ban but in addition desires to make certain that the state is willing to offer support for girls to hold the kid to term and beyond. “We’re pro-life for the entire life,” she said. “We’ve got to have this commitment. I don’t see anyone within the pro-life movement walking away.”
Many professional-life advocates noted that the repeal of Roe marked a recent phase of the pro-life movement, not an end to their efforts.
Many professional-life advocates noted that the repeal of Roe marked a recent phase of the pro-life movement, not an end to their efforts. Kathryn Lopez, a senior fellow on the National Review Institute and an editor at large of the National Review, said that pro-life activists must recommit to the ladies at the center of the abortion debate.
“The march has at all times been about an end to Roe, nevertheless it’s also about an end to abortion,” Ms. Lopez said. “So, rightfully, [the march] continues. It’s a witness to the sanctity of human life, and it’s encouraging to witness the young individuals who consider that.” She added that the “most significant part” is for people to give attention to the “front lines,” including doing “a greater job” of telling the stories of ladies who felt pressure to have abortions and selected to not due to outreach of members of the pro-life movement.
“Everybody who considers themselves pro-life must be challenged to ask themselves what more can they do,” Ms. Lopez said. “I’m at all times aware that after I pray outside Planned Parenthood people feel that I’m judging them, and that’s the last item I’m doing. It’s because we failed to succeed in out to them as best we could.”
Gloria Purvis: “I need people to know pregnancy as a natural final result of sex, and that it’s good and to say, ‘Here’s what we will do to welcome pregnancy even in essentially the most difficult of circumstances.’”
A Call for True Community
Gloria Purvis, the host of “The Gloria Purvis Podcast” at America Media, agrees that the pro-life movement can assist create a shift in how American culture talks about sex, pregnancy and marriage, and she or he sees the March for Life as being an important part of making that change.
Ms. Purvis said she hopes that the March for Life will proceed so long as abortion is an option for girls in the USA and that it continues to work to create a community for individuals who need to see more pro-life laws on the state level. But she also hopes the march changes how people decide to speak about sex and pregnancy.
Ms. Purvis said essentially the most common conversation about pregnancy is the best way to protect oneself from it. “We’re approaching it as a threat until it is needed,” she said. “I need people to know pregnancy as a natural final result of sex, and that it’s good and to say, ‘Here’s what we will do to welcome pregnancy even in essentially the most difficult of circumstances.’ How are we going to have fun this gift and help these women to have an actual sisterhood?”
Ms. Purvis also expressed hope that the march could proceed to search out recent ways to encourage a culture of life, including considering the ways wherein working for racial justice is part of the pro-life cause. The author and commentator Ben Shapiro was a speaker on the 2019 March for Life, and Donald J. Trump, then-president of the USA, addressed the march via video in 2018. Each was met withcriticism amongst some pro-life activists. (Ms. Mancini said she enjoyed having Ben Shapiro speak on the March for Life and that she “will remain at all times grateful that [President Trump] got here to the March for Life,” because it sets a precedent for any future pro-life president.)
“Articulating a culture of life must be made more concrete, and it needs to be done in a way that shouldn’t be aligned with the politics of either party.”
“I support the March for Life while also understanding those that don’t see the appeal,” Ms. Purvis said. “They see the witness of a few of the past March for Life V.I.P.s and the overt MAGA presence as contradictory to constructing a culture of life after Roe.” She said that she has spoken with many individuals who were upset with the selection of Mr. Shapiro as a speaker attributable to, amongst other things, several of his tweets calling out-of-wedlock births within the Black community problematic.
Purvis said that tweets like Shapiro’s “undercut the message [of the March for Life]…. A professional-life culture must cheer on the mother whatever the circumstance. Our bodies get pregnant. That’s only a fundamental fact, and our language should cherish that…. We’d like to say: How can we assist you flourish? Articulating a culture of life must be made more concrete, and it needs to be done in a way that shouldn’t be aligned with the politics of either party.”
A Recent Message for a Recent Era
Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa is not any stranger to on-the-ground pro-life work, because the founding father of the pro-life group Recent-Wave Feminists. Her mother became pregnant along with her at 19, and Ms. De La Rosa became pregnant along with her first child at 16, so she understands each the challenges of unexpected pregnancies and the necessity for strong support networks.
Ms. De La Rosa hopes that the march stays a national event but that the reversal of Roe “reignites a fireplace” within the marchers and helps introduce marchers “to laws you could be supporting, organizations you could be supporting.” She said she is “concerned that there might be a portion of the pro-life movement who thinks our work here is completed” but hopes that the march can assist to remind people “the labor is just starting.”
“I need to see legislators which can be pushing for paid family leave and pregnant employee protection laws,” she said, adding that the necessity for such things shouldn’t be recent.
“I need to see legislators which can be pushing for paid family leave and pregnant employee protection laws.”
“I’m sick of getting used as a political pawn by politicians,” she said. She cited Abide Women’s Health Clinic in Texas, which works largely with Black women and focuses on comprehensive care, as an excellent model. “I need to see that across the nation,” she said. “I’d like to see more women of color and other people of color speaking on the march.”
“The march for all times is definitely pretty fun,” she said. “Helping people is difficult.” She said she hopes that, by attending the march, persons are reminded that “that you’ve gotten to go home and do something.”
Some advocates feel that the tip of Roe might be a probability to reimagine the rallying cry of the march. Quang Tran, S.J., who’s completing his doctoral studies in counseling psychology at Boston College, agrees that much work stays for the pro-life movement. He believes there may be a “symbolic value” in continuing to march every yr, “to not have fun Roe v. Wade falling but to mourn [the lives lost to abortion] and to look at ourselves and to ask how we’ve got failed the unborn and the disadvantaged and ladies on the whole.”
He thinks that it might be useful to reframe the march “as a time of repentance and mourning” in addition to a possibility for an “annual examen of how our institutions, and Catholic institutions especially,” have lived out pro-life values, taking a look at parental leave at Catholic institutions or whether parishes are child friendly. “It might be a time of reflecting on: ‘What have we done to be prophetic not only in words but in our actions?’”
The spectrum of pro-life issues is regularly debated in a category on contemporary moral problems taught by Dana Dillon at Windfall College. The theology professor said abortion and gender identity issues often lead the category discussions. She noted that “from a legislative standpoint, physician assisted suicide is becoming an increasingly vital issue; I’d like to see them connect anti-racism and anti-poverty agendas to the pro-life issues.” She hopes the March for Life will more fully “attune itself to a few of these other life issues.”
She also hopes that the repeal of Roe will force opposing sides of the abortion query to have more nuanced conversations that avoid partisan politics. “Sometimes amongst pro-lifers, it might feel like what we’re an element of is more committed to the Republican Party than the Gospel,” she said. She said that social media feeds can lead us to consider that “everyone in America is celebrating [Roe’s repeal] or everyone seems to be mourning it.”
“It was slightly daunting, but the perfect part was when people cheered for me and my daughter. I felt like I wasn’t alone all those years. I could see that there have been people supporting me.”
Dr. Dillon said that even though it seems the country is incredibly divided on the difficulty of abortion, surveys show that “numerous persons are pretty willing to limit abortion,” and she or he hopes the repeal of Roe might spark some “larger conversations.” For instance, she said that the Mississippi abortion law that many pro-choice advocates oppose stays more permissive than many countries in Europe. She said she hopes the repeal of Roe “will force us to envision a few of our assumptions. While you ask ‘Are you pro-choice or pro-life?’ we’re very divided. We’d like to ask far more complicated questions.”
Mikaela Kook is not any stranger to hard questions. She spoke on the March for Life in 2022, on the age of 19. She was 18 when she came upon she was pregnant, and her boyfriend and lots of friends pressured her to have an abortion. When she refused, her parents told her she had to depart home. She then lived with friends until finding her solution to Mary’s Shelter in Fredericksburg, Va.
Mary’s Shelter offered her help with housing and a counselor and case manager, helping her to administer legal matters and apply for SNAP. She said the organization offered her food and shelter before she could support herself. Today, she is studying at George Mason University to be a history teacher.
Her story is a robust one, but she said she was at first hesitant to share it on the March for Life. She said her politics are middle-of-the-road and wasn’t sure she can be an excellent fit. “I didn’t want people to see me speak on the March for Life and assume I had conservative views,” she said. She was assured by her friends on the shelter that her talk needn’t be a political one.
Ms. Kook said she knew that “numerous the arguments against pro-life persons are that they’re hypocritical” and she or he knew some people like that, but she was encouraged by the incontrovertible fact that she also knew pro-life advocates “who desired to help people, including each children and moms.”
In the long run, Ms. Kook was glad she accepted the invitation to talk on the March for Life. “It was actually an excellent feeling, going out and seeing all those people there and knowing all those people were watching me live,” she said. “It was slightly daunting, but the perfect part was when people cheered for me and my daughter. I felt like I wasn’t alone all those years. I could see that there have been people supporting me.”
Ms. Kook said she hopes that the march can assist to “eliminate the stigma that an unexpected pregnancy is bad.”
She recalled: “I used to be told, ‘You’ll damage your life.’ But I’m still going to high school. All I needed was support.”