Last week I was privileged to be one of the hundreds of thousands of participants in the 41st annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. As usual, it pumped me up with enthusiasm and encouragement for the future of the pro-life movement.
The most obvious sign of encouragement is the increasingly youthful face of the marchers. A quick scan of the crowd revealed one group after another of students—clearly the vast majority of marchers—each with their distinctly colored stocking cap or scarf. Even the Washington Post (usually quite unsympathetic to the pro-life cause) acknowledged in an article that “the world’s largest antiabortion event… grows younger each year.”
I was very proud of the large—and growing—number of students from Nebraska who attended the March. The Archdiocese of Omaha brought seven busloads of students (about 365 individuals). The Diocese of Lincoln brought five busloads (about 260 individuals) which was two busloads more than last year! And the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Newman Center brought two busloads (about 100).
A few years ago, this demographic shift of young people from the pro-abortion movement to the pro-life movement prompted then president of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League), Nancy Keenan, to resign her position so a younger president could try to reverse this momentum.
Another positive sign for the pro-life movement mentioned at the March is the shift in number of pro-life pregnancy-help centers versus the number of abortion mills. Not long ago, there were more abortion mills in this country than pregnancy-help centers. Today, there are 4-5 times as many pregnancy-help centers as there are surgical abortion mills.
According to a survey by the pro-life group Operation Rescue, a record number of surgical abortion clinics in the United States closed in 2013, reducing the number by 12 percent to 582. Even more encouraging, the number of surgical abortion mills has dropped 73 percent from a 1991 high of 2,176.
To be clear, our ultimate objective as a pro-life movement is not to make abortion illegal or harder to obtain, it is to make it unthinkable. Certainly, a critical part of this objective is to secure legal protection for unborn children, but we must go a step further to ensure that we address the injustices that drive women to procure an abortion.
These encouraging signs were countered by a very impoverished statement by President Obama enthusiastically embracing the view that access to abortion is critical to a woman’s ability to participate and advance in our society. Here’s his statement:
“Today, as we reflect on the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, we recommit ourselves to the decision’s guiding principle: that every woman should be able to make her own choices about her body and her health. We reaffirm our steadfast commitment to protecting a woman’s access to safe, affordable health care and her constitutional right to privacy, including the right to reproductive freedom.
“And we resolve to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, support maternal and child health, and continue to build safe and healthy communities for all our children. Because this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.”
This statement is beneath the dignity of the presidency; it is nothing more than facile pro-abortion propaganda and is absent of thoughtful public discourse. His reference to the unborn child as being a part of the woman’s body is ancient rhetoric that is embarrassing from the perspective of modern science.
Furthermore, the president’s characterization of abortion as providing women with the freedom and opportunity to fulfill their dreams is insulting to women. Championing legal abortion as an achievement for women’s rights does nothing to address the real injustices that pregnant women face in our society. Rather, this view abandons women, leaving them to (in the words of Feminists for Life president Serrin Foster) “submit to these injustices by destroying their pregnancies.”
In the shadows of the Feast of St. Paul’s conversion, let us pray daily for the conversion of President Obama and all pro-abortion public officials that they would see the light of Truth.
