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WASHINGTON, D.C. – People from across the nation and around world rallied Friday (Jan. 19) at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for the annual March for Life just three days prior to the 45th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that legalized abortion on demand across the nation. And while pro-life advocates marched these past four and a half decades their children and grandchildren paid attention and have joined them in the call to end abortion.
A majority of the estimated 100,00-plus participants (No official counts are registered) were overwhelmingly teenagers and young adults who recognize the impact the 1973 Roe v Wade decision has had on their generation. They carried hand-made placards stating “One-third of my generation is missing” referencing the more than 1 million babies, on average, aborted each year since 1973. And they donned t-shirts declaring “I survived Roe v Wade. Roe v Wade won’t survive me.” Often called “the Pro-life generation” by people their parents’ age or older, the TEXAN asked the high school and college students if the title is one they claim for themselves.
“Its not something we decided to become,” Grady Moyer, a high school senior and member of Church at the Cross in Grapevine, Texas said. “But God worked in us.”
Moyer was among 32 students and young adults who travelled to D.C. for the march eager to add their voices to the call to end abortion. James Sercey, Church at the Cross Student pastor, said he recognizes the March for Life is a significant event founded and organized by the Catholic Church but he would like to see more protestant churches add their voices to the nation’s largest pro-life demonstration.
To help facilitate that effort the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and Focus on the Family hosted the third Evangelicals for Life Conference in an effort to draw more Protestant churches to the march and broaden their members’ perspective on what it means to be pro-life.
Only Leanne Jamison, among the 28 women from Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, had attended the national march in the past. Hoisting teal-colored placards promoting the church’s pregnancy center and the admonition to “Love Life” the band of women joined the flow of demonstrators leaving their hotel for the five-block walk to the mall and the sea of life-affirming compatriots.
Compelled by their belief that life is sacred they marched. But, as they passed the U.S. Capital, some paused to consider their constitutional right to march Jamison said.
“As Americans we can do this – all walk together,” Melanie Leach, one of the Prestonwood marchers, told the TEXAN. “I am marching for our inalienable right to life.”
The event marked the first time a sitting president spoke to the rally live via satellite. In his address from the White House Rose Garden President Donald Trump thanked the marchers for their commitment to life while acknowledging America’s place among human rights abusing nations when it comes to abortion policies.
“We are one of the only nations that still allows for late term abortions. This is wrong and needs to change.”
President Donald Trump
“We are one of the only nations that still allows for late term abortions,” Trump said. “This is wrong and needs to change.”
Ironically, attendees from nations with more restrictive abortion laws than the U.S. joined the national march in order to learn from the “good example” of America’s pro-life movement said Joseph Ureta of France’s Droit De Naître (Right to be Born). In France, abortion is unrestricted up to 12 weeks and requires the approval of two physicians after that.
While American pro-lifers are mostly motivated by their faith, Ureta, who is Catholic, lamented that in order to draw as many French supporters to the movement, Right to be Born must minimalize the religious arguments. And that, he acknowledged, minimalizes what should be the primary pro-life message.
“The greatest motivation is the love of God,” he said.
In Australia, people simply do not want to discuss abortion, said Mary Lennon, 22, of Sydney. She and pro-life workers from Australia travelled to Washington D.C. to discover how they can more effectively promote the pro-life message back home. Australians are “nonconfrontational” and avoid the abortion debate forcing pro-life activists to discover new means for engaging their countrymen, Lennon said.
As in America, Australia’s abortion laws vary from state to state with Victoria’s laws being the most egregious allowing abortion up to birth said Rebecca Gosper, 21, LifeChoice Australia director, a pro-life organization. Australian laws also place 150-meter buffer zones around abortion facilities and allow no conscience protections for medical personnel she said.
Gosper believes more Australians than polls indicate are pro-life but are hesitant to speak up for fear of backlash. But America’s national March for Life has inspired Gosper to motivate the students on Australia’s university campuses to speak up for life.
Isaac Spencer, Campaigns Manager for Right to Life New South Wales said he looks forward to taking America’s pro-life examples back to Australia to fight the “human rights outrage” of abortion.
And hours after the demonstration had concluded a trio of marchers, far from the event’s epicenter and carrying a Polish flag and life-affirming signs, told the TEXAN they had travelled from Poland to take part in the march. Poland has some of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws allowing the procedure only when the life of the mother is at risk, if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, or if the unborn baby has a grave health diagnosis. The Polish parliament is even considering legislation that would revoke the latter provision.
Although drawing people from different Christian backgrounds the message that all people are image bearers of God bound the March for Life participants. Chatter and laughter among them as they walked the two-hour-long one-mile trek to the Supreme Court was broken by spontaneous singing, corporate prayers, and raucous chants of “We love babies, yes we do. We love babies, how ‘bout your?” And, for good measure, a New Orleans Catholic high school marching band stood on the sidewalk and performed for grateful marchers passing by.
In stark contrast participants in the Women’s March gathered the following day on the same National Mall proclaiming a very different and paradoxical message. Donning knitted pink hats with a name that denigrates women’s bodies, their message of equal treatment and respect for women was contradicted by calls for unrestricted abortion, expletive-laced denunciations of Trump, and support for gender dysphoric men who believe they are women.
But is marching enough?
Being part of such a large, unified declaration about the dignity and sanctity of human life was exhilarating for the Texas SBC church members. But the March for Life and, for the Church at the Cross students, the Evangelicals for Life Conference, caused them to consider how they will live out a pro-life ethic for the remaining 364 days of the year.
Leach knows she cannot march and then walk away. Her commitment to supporting Lifesavers Foundation, a Dallas-Fort Worth area faith-based ministry providing health services to women and their young children has been reinvigorated.
The students and young adults from Church at the Cross understand they have the “power and influence” of social media for reaching their peers with the pro-life message said Nathaniel Ortiz, a senior homeschool student.
Ortiz, Grady and Hannah Webber, a college freshman, agreed that they will earn an audience with their ideological opponents when their pro-choice peers see their compassion for humanity extends beyond the womb.
“If we care about life we’re going to care about the person who cuts us off in traffic – the ones I haven’t valued as image bearers of God,” Webber said.
“People will ask what I think about things when they see that I care,” said Moyer.
