A crowd estimated in the tens of thousands flooded the National Mall for the March for Life on Friday.
The annual gathering draws pro-life advocates from all over the U.S. and foreign countries to Washington, D.C., marking the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Jan. 22, 1973 decision that legalized abortion.
The march was kicked off by a rally on the National Mall attended by thousands, where President Donald Trump became the first U.S. president to address the March for Life. He did so while Democratic House trial managers were making the case for his impeachment in the U.S. Senate.
“Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House,” Trump said. “Every life brings love into this world. Every child brings joy to a family. Every person is worth protecting.”
The president highlighted recent state-level efforts to expand abortion to include all nine months of pregnancy, singling out legislation passed in New York last year as well as controversial comments by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D).
Trump was joined on stage by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), March for Life president Jeanne Mancini, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), and others.
Other speakers at the rally included political figures from both Republican and Democratic parties: the First Lady of Louisiana, Donna Bel Edwards; House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.); Louisiana State Sen. Katrina Jackson (D); U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.); and Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List and co-chair of the Trump 2020 campaign’s pro-life coalition.
“Today, as president of the United States, I am truly proud to stand with you,” Trump said at the rally, noting that the march was “to defend the right of every child, born and unborn, to fulfill their God-given potential.”
“Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God,” he said.
Following the speeches from the rally’s main stage, the march proper began, progressing up the National Mall towards the Supreme Court.
Carrying the giant March for Life banner at the front of the crowd is regarded as a privilege, bestowed on a different group each year.
For 2020, students at Oakcrest School in McLean, Virginia—a Catholic all-girls middle and high school—led the march. Oakcrest administrators said that the school has a long history of supporting life and participating in the march each year, with classes suspended for the day to allow students and teachers to attend. The banner was carried by members of the school’s student-run Respect Life Club.
Behind Oakcrest, students at Colorado Christian University carried flags ahead of the main body of the march. The estimated tens of thousands of marchers moved up the National Mall towards the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill, where a few hundred pro-abortion demonstrators had gathered earlier in the day.
The theme of the 2020 march,“Life Empowers: Pro-Life is Pro-Woman,” was chosen to mark the centennial anniversary of women’s right to vote in the United States with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. The march’s theme was chosen to counter the narrative put forward by abortion supporters that the practice “empowers” women.
Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, told CNA when the theme was announced that “we primarily chose it because of the centennial” and to show that real “empowerment” meant valuing the lives of mothers and their unborn children.
In an op-ed published Friday morning, Mancini said that “abortion does not improve the lives of women and, unlike many who claim to be part of the women’s movement today, the suffragists wanted no part of it.”
“Abortion not only destroys women’s offspring, it can also cause lasting physical harm and psychological trauma. It’s a violent step backward that disproportionately affects women,” Mancini said.
“It has been 100 years since the suffragists won women the right to vote. They did so over time with single-minded focus and perseverance, and, in the end, gave voice to their voiceless sisters.”
“We should not take for granted the progress they made. This November, we should use their victory to give voice to the voiceless unborn. They too deserve equal rights and protection under the law,” said Mancini.
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Would be nice to know if any Cardinals or Bishops were at the March.
Cardinal Burke was there, God bless him. But who supplied the estimate of “tens of thousands”? It was hundreds of thousands and has been that many for many years. I have timed it: a column three miles long packed solid 75 feet across is not just “tens of thousands.”
Bishop Salvatore Matano of Rochester, NY was there.
“It has been 100 years since the suffragists won women the right to vote. They did so over time with single-minded focus and perseverance, and, in the end, gave voice to their voiceless sisters.”
What use is the right to vote, when the ignorance of the United States’ citizens allows them to mistakenly recognize the unlawful opinion of nine unelected lawyers as somehow “striking down” state laws passed by duly elected legislators?
Apparently, I am to be the lone voice in the wilderness, but it is impossible from a moral or Constitutional perspective for abortion to be “legalized.” The Supreme Court is not a law-making body-it decides cases-and because abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution (which only applies to the federal government), it is a state issue (by the 10th Amendment), and can’t be reviewed or “struck down” by the Supreme Court on Constitutional grounds. Furthermore, of course there can be no just “law” passed (by any government) which allows the direct killing of an innocent human life. The right to life is an inalienable natural right. Any “law” which allows the abridgment of this natural right violates the natural law, and therefore is unjust.
Roe vs. Wade was a piece of legal sophistry, and was an evil, unjust, and false judgment. That it has passed muster as a perfectly valid decision (which somehow has “legalized” abortion by “striking down” state laws against abortion) in the public square exposes the general ignorance of the population and the tacit complicity of those who should know better and either do not know, are silent when they shouldn’t be (or their voices are being excluded by the mainstream media), or secretly support the wickedness.
Truth is not always fair often compelling. The Woman Rebel newsletter published by Margaret Sanger 1914 vaunts No gods no masters. The driving principle of today’s feminist movement. How Ms Sanger got there. Her mother Ann left potato famine Ireland married Michael Higgins former Civil War Union drummer boy then medical student then stonecutter of religious statues finally atheist fathering 18 children 11 surviving. Margaret Higgins Irish Catholic born Corning NY spent her youth caring for children her sickly mother who died early could not. When it touches human life created in God’s image there is no compelling compromise simply hard facts. Life isn’t always clean cut regards morality the matter settled by the Creator his grace and often heroic virtue. Otherwise culture collapses into a politics of death. Death not simply abortion became Sanger’s initial premise for abortion clinics when as social worker NYC she concluded Black are like weeds that must be eliminated. Clinics opened mainly in poor minority Black areas as today. The irony is that progressive politicians have convinced Blacks abortion is a procreative right of which conservatives seek to deprive them. In effect saying Let us help you by killing your babies. Marjorie Dannenfelser Jeanne Mancini offer women the better option. The redemptive concept of woman echoing Pres Trump’s quite religious remark Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God. Woman is the bearer of life like Our Blessed Mother the nurturer of goodness and moral courage. I would also add Roger Scruton’s “Without religion, we risk being lost in the pursuit of pleasure and advantage, tempted away from all durable commitments and without the virtue on which societies ultimately depend, which is the virtue of sacrifice” (Roger Scruton on Sacred Truths in a Profane World in conversation with Hamza Yusuf Editor Renovatio).
Why do so many Catholics vote democrat when you know they are in favor of killing babies?