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A Further Perspective
The Pro-Life March’s New Young Face
Ignored as usual by the “mainstream,” but having a huge impact.
Forty years ago last week the Supreme Court declared that it found a hitherto unknown right in the Constitution, the right to have an abortion, no questions asked. That is, no one save the pregnant woman could say nay.
Every anniversary since then, the “Pro-Life” forces have carried out a March for Life on the National Mall, culminating in front of the Supreme Court building. For years their numbers have been growing. Although the National Park Service no longer estimates the size of rallies on the Mall, Doug McKelway of Fox News, who has covered a number of the events, said Friday that it looked to him to be the largest crowd ever, probably several hundred thousand.
At the edges of the Pro-Life crowd was a small band of pro-abortion folks. They always call themselves “Pro Choice,” although they seem unaware of the irony in that term. The fact is that any woman who decides to engage in unprotected sex has made a choice with potentially unintended consequences, an unwanted pregnancy.
The pro-abortion folks think there should be no responsibility to be attached to that other than opting for an abortion, preferably paid for by the taxpayers. (This approach was extended to the notion of taxpayer-paid contraception touted by college student Sandra Fluke at last summer’s Democratic National Convention. It was no fluke that Obamacare has provisions requiring all employers to include free contraception in their health care policies.)
The huge and impassioned throng at the March for Life heard equally passionate speeches from such as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey. The event was covered by wire services and most newspapers although the “mainstream” television networks largely ignored it, as they usually do.
Does the March for Life move the needle of public opinion on the subject of abortion? A new poll by the Pew Research Center shows that 63 percent of adults oppose overturning the Roe v. Wade decision, up from 60 percent 20 years ago.
That, however, does not mean the public wholeheartedly supports unrestricted abortion. Far from it. A Gallup poll shows that 52 percent of the people want it to be legal under certain circumstances, while 25 percent want no restrictions and 20 percent want it outlawed. In the mid-nineties then-President Bill Clinton said abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” This was a popular declaration although it turned out to be lip service when it came the “rare” part.
Where the Pro-Life movement is making headway is at the state level. Some 16 states have passed or are considering restrictions, such as parental notice by girls under 18; and prohibiting partial-birth abortion. (Partial-birth because the baby is out of the womb, full formed, but the physician has not patted it on the back to make it cry and the placenta has not been cut. A very small number of physicians agree to kill these babies — which abortion devotees call “Late-term abortion.” These doctors do it by abandoning the Hippocratic oath and plunging an instrument into the baby’s spine.)
In addition to making headway at the state level the Pro-Life movement has found a large influx of new and young marchers. Jeanne Monahan, president of the March for Life Education & Defense Fund, estimated that 80 percent of the marchers last Friday were under the age of 20. Benedictine College of Atchison, Kansas, for example, sent seven buses filled with 400 people from its home town on a 30-hour ride to Washington. A spokesman said this was easily the largest delegation the college had sent in the 28 years it has participated in the March for Life.
As the saying goes, progress often comes in inches, not great leaps.
Photo: Patrick O’Hannigan
About the Author
Peter Hannaford was closely associated for a number of years with the late President Reagan, beginning in the California Governor’s office. His latest book is Presidential Retreats.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (35) | Leave a comment
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drudge ette obama| 1.28.13 @ 6:29AM
Like the Lewinsky debacle, a little time and fresh faces that weren't aborted sheds light on the horror of abortion. The sheer numbers are astonishing. The lives never lived. The regrets as the women grow older. All because of the cost and inconvenience of a baby.
I wasn't aborted. Thanks, Mom.
Joellen| 1.28.13 @ 7:57AM
Drudge ette obama, I've been wanted to say for a while "I am sorry", I misread one of your comments a while ago (about abortion), and responded in an angry way. Please know that I was wrong.
But you are right, THANKS MOM & DAD for saying YES to LIFE. And you're right about the sufferering the women who suffer the horror of abortion. Every year, they give witness to it in front of hundreds of thousand - talk about courage! They are truly "silent no more" and they are truly being heard!
This is the civil rights of our generation, should never have taken this long, 40 years too long, but it is finally being faught like a war. Strategies have been in place, and the battles, some small, are being won. The biggest battle, more women see abortion as the taking of a Life, and that is monumental!
TLP| 1.28.13 @ 11:37AM
Over in Iranistan, I'mahandajob denies that the Holocaust never happened, and the Free World has Conniptions Fit.
How Dare that little B*st*rd say that! We gotta Increase Sanctions, Isolate him further, and Blow his freakin Head Off!
Meanwhile, back in The World?
We've partaken in the Slaughter 60 Million Innocent Lives, over 40Years, and the people Responsible are Celebrated in the Papers, the Movies, and in Academia.
What we have done, makes what the Nazi's did look like a Game of Flag Football, by comparison.
Gee. I wonder why God's so mad at us?
drudge ette obama| 1.28.13 @ 9:53PM
Joellen, thank you for your comment. I understand and understood. Let it pass with understanding.
Appleby| 1.28.13 @ 7:01AM
Keep in mind that it's the young atheist Liberals that are being aborted. The tide is turning because of that simple fact, as well as the undeniably persausive truth that people who march to "protect children" from guns and sugary drinks and Happy Meals and fifth-generation cigarette smoke are coming face to face with the cognitive dissonance of supporting protecting children only if they manage to survive long enough to be born...that until baby takes that first breath, it's permanent Open Season and Baby is on her own. People who are made to face this fact with either start thinking or their heads will explode.
Seek| 1.28.13 @ 12:01PM
I wasn't aware that fetuses had passionate beliefs. Even if you mean future liberals, how do you know how they will turn out? First of all, a lot of conservative females get abortions. Those would-be offspring might well have been conservatives. Second, children, believe it or not, tend to develop their own beliefs, regardless of what their parents "encourage" them to believe.
Doctor Right| 1.28.13 @ 1:08PM
How do YOU know how they'll turn out, Seek?
Especially if they're never given a chance to live?
You know, if Conservatives were really the nasty, evil people that they're portrayed to be in the press, we'd LOVE abortion!
Why? Simple. Because probability dictates that the vast majority of those aborted children had mothers who were Pro-Abortion (obviously). Therefore, it's likely to assume that a great many of them would have grown-up in homes that supported the Democrat Party on pure policy or because of social transfer payments.
Therefore, it's likely that a great many of those children - more than half - would have been Democrats. In fact, 40% of the babies aborted since 1973 were black - that's almost 20 million black babies!
Black Americans voted for Obama a margin of 9:1 (93%). If those 20 million aborted black babies had been allowed to live, then the Left would have an insurmountable voting block.
Despite this, we who believe that life begins at conception want this atrocity to end. That's because our choice is based on moral principles, not political expediency.
Unlike the left...
Don L| 1.28.13 @ 7:49AM
"(This approach...taxpayer-paid contraception...It was no fluke that Obamacare has provisions requiring all employers to include free contraception in their health care policies.)"
I would suggest that the real purpose of this (not needed -contraception is cheap) was to force the Catholic Church to either embrace mortal sin (Abortion via abortificants) or close down. God is always evil's enemy, which explins why the democratic conventiobn booed Him so publicly and without the least shame (or fear).
PJ| 1.28.13 @ 8:19AM
I will even go out on a limb to say that Roe vs Wade will be overturned someday soon after the baby boomers die off.
This abortion- rights mentality started under their parents' watch, who are just about gone with the death panel's decisions going to take care of the rest. The baby boomers will also leave this world in similar circumstances---- death panel decisions that is.
For the pro-life youngsters, it's a simple waiting game where patience will be an important virtue for them.
Doctor Right| 1.28.13 @ 1:10PM
Depends.
Those who control the levers of power in DC control the flow of information into and out of the state-run educational system.
If Socialism becomes the norm, Roe v Wade will never be over-turned.
Stephie| 1.28.13 @ 8:44AM
obamacare will have to be killed before we can get abortion stopped. Also, the liberal taking point that without "safe and legal" abortion, women will have to go into the back alleys again. Well, get this. I read that in the once great state of California, due to the lack of physicians, it will no longer be trained doctors performing the procedures, it will be lay people. Really? Sounds like back alley to me, just in a building and on a table with a sheet.
Horrific.
JimH| 1.28.13 @ 9:25AM
One argument of the pro abortion side has been that the attempt to limit their right to chooze was being done by largely middle aged white males who should have no say over what females do with their bodies. Seeing that the majority of faces in the Pro Life rally look to be woman of child bearing age, this argument, always specious, is increasingly given the lie.
Simon Templar| 1.28.13 @ 11:15AM
Recent polling and surveys that I have seen show that the majority want to put restrictions on it and believe it is immoral. I have also seen polls that claim that 51 percent of the population want Roe overturned and identify themselves as Pro-life. The author did not mention this but rather another GD liberal polling institute such as Gallup. So, which is correct?
When will people learn, particularly conservatives, that polls say what the poll institute want them to say. Stop quoting these polls and shooting yourself in the head with them, IDIOTS.
Edward Radler Rice| 1.28.13 @ 2:32PM
The title of this piece is off. The young have always been involved in the March for Life. Perhaps the under 25 crowd has constituted the majority from the beginning. Young adults were clearly in the majority since I participated a decade ago.
Nightwinger| 1.28.13 @ 2:33PM
Obsession with "Control of the Uterus."
Did it ever occur to you "Freedom Lovers" that a personal medical decision is none of the government's business?
markenoff| 1.28.13 @ 3:27PM
Obsession with the Constitution.
14th Amendment reads, in part, "....nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Our system is designed to protect the weak from the overreach of the strong (especially the government) and to protect the minority from the majority. That's why the burden of proof is on the government in criminal cases and why we use a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. You cannot prove that an unborn baby is NOT a person, therefore we must err on the side of the weak, the unborn baby, and extend the protection of the 14th Amendment to it. That makes a whole lot more sense than creating a new Constitutional right to kill unborn babies under the "penumbra" of the privacy rights protected under the 4th Amendment.
mike 3/505| 1.28.13 @ 11:31PM
Nicely put.
JmsA| 1.28.13 @ 11:42PM
Yes, nicely put, but the problem is that the other side bases its beliefs and opinions on convenient double standards, with a healthy helping of hypocrisy: protect the right to abort at the behest of the mother while denying life to the other.
Nightwinger| 1.29.13 @ 3:06AM
Oh yeah...."protect" the un-born. Well, the un-born had better stay un-born, 'cause once they take a breath suddenly "protection" disappears and they become responsibility of the parent.
Using the government to force gestation qualifies as "involuntary servitude" in the Constitution, making women into baby factories without personal rights over their own bodies.
Yet so many here complain about excessive intrusion by government into people's lives, the mendacity is quite clear.
spike59| 1.29.13 @ 5:51AM
"Using the government to force gestation"...so, 'the government' would be forcing people to have intercourse while banning them from the birth control rack at Walgreens, CVS, their local health department (which provides condoms for free) or even Planned Parenthood (which, I'll grant, would much prefer their customers coming in for abortion$, rather than actual 'planning' purposes)...is that about the size of it, scooter?
no, your hysterics aside, it's simple human biology, coupled with a lack of intelligence and/or ounce of responsibility, that 'forces gestation'
spike59| 1.29.13 @ 5:53AM
I'm pretty sure Mengele thought his little 'experiments' and 'lamp shade arts& crafts' were 'personal medical decisions', also
Hardcard| 1.28.13 @ 2:43PM
abortion is murder. "Thou shalt not kill" sound familiar? Control your desires, stop screwing like rabbits and return to morality and the Ten Commandments.
Edward Radler Rice| 1.28.13 @ 9:47PM
Nightwinger,
Read the court record of Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court saw abortion as a way to prevent a pregnancy coming to term if contraception failed.
Moreover, abortion is historically related to racism. Starting with Margaret Sanger, check out the history of eugenics in the United States.
The HHS mandate is essentially about government control of population. I suggest you read Pope Paul VI's letter, Humanae Vitae, in which he foresees governments coercing peoples to use birth control.
Finally, check out the videos regarding the myth of overpopulation from the Population Research Institute...
Stop flying blind.
Nightwinger| 1.29.13 @ 3:48AM
Fortunately we don't live in a Theocracy where a group of celibate old men with pointy hats set national policy.
The U.S. Constitution is a ferociously secular document that basically champions the rights of the individual over the power of the state.
Don't like contraception? Then don't use it.
Don't like abortions? Then don't have one.
Women are not mere receptacles subject to government enforced religious dogma such as the Taliban might impose.
You may be flying blind if you don't see the inherent contradiction between the Conservative call for less intrusive government while at the same time seeking to use the power of the state to control a personal medical decision by an individual.
The issue is Liberty.
spike59| 1.29.13 @ 5:55AM
"Don't like contraception? Then don't use it."
-----------------------------------------------------
you forgot...'and live with the consequences; don't KILL the consequences'
Simon Templar| 1.29.13 @ 12:57PM
Well, I would like the right to make the personal choice to kill a liberal like you but I can not and it is really is too bad that government as well as many religions have impeded me from doing it.
Abortion is not a medical decision unless the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother.
It is not men with point hats that set national policy or any policy, it is the People.
Nor is it the purvey of activist courts.
Edward Radler Rice| 1.29.13 @ 1:03PM
Liberty is the issue. Nightwinger, here’s a question: If the government were to coerce a woman to use birth control, to undergo a sterilization procedure, or to abort her child, would that woman be free? Since you are flying around in the dark, I’ll assume that you do not know that governments have coerced people to use birth control, to undergo sterilization, and to abort their offspring. In fact, if you did some research you would discover that our government is acting coercively right now. I doubt you will do any deep research since you believe that license is equivalent to liberty. When a person divorces liberty from responsibility they tend to equate liberty with license. However, liberty shorn of personal responsibility very soon becomes a slave master, with the seductive glamour of a goddess. The root of real womanhood, however, is God, who holds us responsible for our choices. You are of the mind to have women (“mere receptacles”) filled with employer-paid contraception and emptied of any consequences stemming from their fornication or adultery, right?
Nightwinger| 1.29.13 @ 3:03PM
"stemming from their fornication or adultery..."
What contempt you appear to have for the rights of women. Sounds like something from Saudi Arabia.
You just don't get it, do you? Once you accept the idea that government has the power to regulate reproduction, it opens the door to precisely the tyrrany and coercion you find abhorrent.
Whether imposed in the name of god, gods or secular population control it's an undeniable intrustion on Liberty.
Edward Radler Rice| 1.29.13 @ 1:04PM
As an employer, I should be free from government coercion in regards to my religion (as long as my religious practices are not harmful to anyone).
As a citizen, I should be free from government coercion in regards to morality (as long as my morality does not negatively interfere with the common good).
We are living in what is quickly becoming a psuedo a-theocracy . Even atheists and agnostics believe in god or the gods. They just don’t believe in the living God. Basically, we are living through the collapse of Evangelical Protestantism and the replacement of it by Secular Paganism. Both are contradictions.
The U.S. Constitution is the fruit of Judeo-Christian civilization as it was historically contextualized both before and after the “Reformation” in England. But the English polis was itself a fruit of Christendom. It is simply erroneous to think that our constitution is purely an outgrowth of Enlightenment secularism as it was manifested most bloodily during the French Revolution.
Government does three things: it prohibits, permits, or promotes. When government promotes evil, it becomes a tyrant.
Nightwinger| 1.29.13 @ 3:18PM
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their PERSONS, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated....[emphasis added]
So presumably confiscating a woman's body to force fetal gestation by government decree to satisfy some religious dogma is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, not to mention the 13th regarding "involuntary servitude" as well as the 1st regarding the "Establishment of religion."
I doubt the USA will accept some Christian version of the Taliban anytime soon.
Zerilian| 1.29.13 @ 2:25PM
I usually criticize liberals for being loose with the facts and making obvious generalizations to pander their point, but congratulations - you win the dumb liberal award.
You oppose abortion. I support your right to do so. But don't be lazy. Let's start with this comment here: "The fact is that any woman who decides to engage in unprotected sex has made a choice with potentially unintended consequences, an unwanted pregnancy." No $#it Sherlock, but not all pregnancies arrive from unprotected sex. Condoms break and other methods fail as well. It's in the fine print. And just as it takes two to make a baby, it takes two to choose to have unprotected sex (except in rape). You sound like my grandmother, "Well dear, men can't control themselves. It's not their fault. It's the woman's responsibility."
Obviously I am Pro-Choice. But I demand strict guidelines to who and when. I believe that the window before the heart develops is enough time for a couple who knows they don't want to be parents to make a decision. It's a private discussion and does not concern you.
I'm a libertarian and don't want liberals or control freaks in my daily life. Unless my actions have a direct consequence on your daily life, bugger off. Thus, free abortions is just ludicrous. Using taxpayers' money for an individuals' private choice is criminal. The left wants it both ways and that is wrong, but don't muddy the waters of an emotional debate with liberal-esque arguements.
Nightwinger| 1.29.13 @ 3:47PM
Streangely, it appears to be mostly MEN who are the most stridently vociferous on this issue yet have the least stake in the argument.
Nightwinger| 1.29.13 @ 3:48PM
Strangely....
Nightwinger| 1.29.13 @ 3:48PM
Strangely....
spike59| 1.30.13 @ 5:48AM
around 50% of the babies being aborted are male...100% of the babies being aborted have fathers...yeah, men have no stake...
Strangely, is appears to be the babies being aborted who have the MOST stake in the argument, yet have absolutely ZERO voice over their fate