Since the infamous Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973, pro-life activists have been down in the trenches every day of every week of every year, fighting for the lives of the unborn. Once a year — around the anniversary of that decision — thousands come together in the March for Life in Washington, D.C. and other cities across America. This year, marchers say they have reason to hope they marched “on the brink of a post-Roe world.”
Scores of thousands marched on the Washington mall Friday despite what many see as efforts from the Beltway powers-that-be to stymie the march with heavy-handed COVID regulations a year after the march was canceled by those same powers-that-be for that same reason. As LifeSiteNews reported:
The 2022 March For Life was a resounding success with turnout as large as ever, despite attempts by the District of Columbia to discourage attendance with harsh vaccine restrictions. This year took on a special significance after last year’s March was canceled and the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court could repeal Roe vs. Wade in June.
This year’s march was different. Not because of the crowd or the speakers — not because of the weather or the attempts by the powers-that-be to prevent the march. Those things were — by and large — fairly on par with previous years. This year was different because, as Ashley McGuire wrote in an op-ed for USA Today, “This year, we marched on the brink of a post-Roe world.”
McGuire went on to write:
That’s cause for histrionics among abortion-rights advocates. But for March for Life supporters, it’s cause for a calm and steadfast seriousness.
The end of Roe is hardly the end of our work as a movement. Rather, it’s a critical marker in our efforts to build up a culture where women flourish freed from the death tax of abortion.
The first March for Life, held the year after Roe v. Wade, drew about 20,000 people. Now the crowds are estimated to have grown at least tenfold. Every year the press dings the march by issuing some variation on the headline, “Thousands attend anti-abortion rally.” But everyone knows the truth; the movement has ballooned, in size and savvy, in the decades that have passed since abortion became legal.
And:
Despite the mantra that women need abortion to succeed, we know we don’t. More women are in the workforce than ever before, with a steady growth in the presence of women in managerial and professional roles in particular. Yet abortion rates are at historic lows.
Society has changed, and the movement against abortion has changed with it. Not only has it grown younger and more passionate, but the movement has also broadened its scope and thrown its weight behind programs and initiatives that help women the abortion-rights movement preys on.
They heard that women wanted choice, and so they’ve worked to give women real ones. They are, for example, the engine behind the thousands of pregnancy centers nationwide that serve millions annually. These centers spend hundreds of millions of dollars to provide services such as free ultrasounds, diapers and education to mothers who want more for themselves than a cold surgical table with stirrups.
And they have thrown their weight behind creative approaches to policy ideas that would ensure new mothers don’t have to go back to work just days after giving birth to put food on the table.
But lasting change in a post-Roe world requires a new vision of women’s rights, one that is untethered from the abortion-rights movement, which has corroded feminism.
Speakers at this year’s march included actor and producer Kirk Cameron, Representative Julia Letlow (R-La.), Representative Chris Smith (R-N.J.), actress Lisa Robertson, and Father Mike Schmitz, who hosts the Bible in a Year podcast and is well-known for his YouTube videos produced for Ascension Presents.
Fr. Schmitz delivered the keynote address, emphasizing that “every life matters.” In his speech, Fr. Schmitz told of his grandmother, Helen, who quit her job as a head nurse at a Twin Cities hospital in 1973 when — after Roe — the hospital said that nurses would be required to assist in abortions.
“So she went to the board of directors and said, ‘This needs to stop. Either you stop doing abortions or I’m leaving,’” Schmitz said, adding that “in that moment, Helen stood. And they said, ‘You can leave.’ And in that moment, Helen walked.” Fr. Schmitz went on to say, “And that matters. Because every person matters. Every life matters.”
He said that when his grandmother left a job she loved it broke her heart, and he compared that pain to the pain that motivates people to travel to Washington, D.C., every year to march for the lives of unborn children,. He said, “I think we’re here because abortion and what it’s done has broken our hearts,” adding, “I know, so many people here are standing here because you know the dignity of human life.”
He said his grandmother’s hard decision to leave her job over the principle of human dignity may not have immediately changed the law or the culture, “but it changed her, and it changed her sons, and it changed her daughter, my mom. And that willingness to stand, that willingness to walk, it has echoed into my life.”
As America stands on the likely brink of the Supreme Court overturning Roe this summer, the pro-life movement will have plenty of work to do. Because the wounds of abortion — in the women who have had abortions and in the men who have encouraged them — run deep. Fr. Schmitz addressed those who have participated in abortion, saying, “I know that we’re surrounded by men and women who have chosen abortion, and listen, here’s what you need to know: You’re supposed to be here.” He added, “You matter. You belong here. No matter what your past is, you are still loved. You need to know this.”
The efforts of the pro-life movement have certainly born fruit. Not only is the Supreme Court expected to finally end Roe when it issues it’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June, but public sentiment has continued to turn against the killing of unborn children. In fact, a recent poll found that even many who identify as “pro-choice” favor restrictions on abortion that strike at the foundation of Roe.
With the hopeful death of Roe on the near horizon, this may be the last year pro-lifers will march demanding an end to Roe, but it will not be the last time they march. The end of Roe will not mark the end of the movement; It will mark the beginning of a new day for the movement.
Because the end of Roe would put this issue back where it belongs: in the hands of state legislatures and the voters who elect them. The abortion lobby has long feared that day; They appear to know they cannot win in the states, so they have sought to make — and keep — the fight at the national level where Big Money and corrupt politicians (on both the Left and the Right) do their bidding.
The end of Roe — whether it comes this summer or at another time — will come because of the prayers, hard work, and dedication of men, women, and children who have fought for life ever since the 1973 decision.
