WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tens of hundreds of pro-life demonstrators gathered on the Nationwide Mall as we speak for the fiftieth March for Life, the primary to be held because the ending of nationwide constitutional protections for abortion.
For many years, March for Life’s main aim has been to see the reversal of the Supreme Court docket’s 1973 Roe v. Wade determination, which legalized abortion. That aim was achieved final summer time with the Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group determination that overturned Roe and drastically expanded the flexibility of elected officers on the state and federal ranges to limit abortion.
That victory for abortion foes has left a giant query hanging over the pro-life motion: What subsequent?
It is a query of explicit curiosity for libertarians, each pro-life and pro-choice.
The previous have to determine how greatest to string the needle between legally defending the lives of the unborn with out falling into the everyday pitfalls that await prohibitionists attempting to cease one thing lots of people wish to do. The latter wish to know precisely what threats to the person proper to abortion they will now must face down.
For as we speak’s triumphant rallygoers—a wholesome mixture of out-of-town college students, households, and extra Dominican friars than one may shake a stick at—the mission stays fairly easy and principally unchanged.
“We’ll march till abortion is unthinkable,” mentioned March for Life President Jeanne Mancini at as we speak’s rally.
That is definitely a giant aim. New York Instances columnist Ross Douthat described it as “genuinely revolutionary, even utopian.” The ending of Roe is merely a primary step towards that utopian endpoint.
“We’re at first of a brand new marathon,” Kristi Hamrick, of College students for Life, tells Cause. “The autumn of Roe actually solely eliminated a roadblock from the place we may go.”
Audio system as we speak talked about a number of doable instructions.
Newly put in Home Majority Chief Rep. Steve Scalise (R–La.) gained cheers from the group when he talked about the Home’s current passage of a invoice that requires docs to supply care to kids born alive throughout an tried abortion. He additionally touted a invoice from the final Congress that will develop limits on federal funding of abortion and restrict insurance policy’ skill to cowl the process.
Neither invoice is more likely to go wherever whereas Democrats management the Senate and White Home. The one Democratic elected official to talk was Connecticut Rep. Treneé McGee (D–New Haven) who railed in opposition to abortion as a racist follow that amounted to the “mass genocide of our youngsters.”
The partisan mixture of audio system (or lack thereof) highlights how divisive abortion stays after Dobbs. Purple states have moved to ban and limit it whereas blue states have expanded subsidies for it.
That is the battle pro-lifers face with the top of Roe. The motion’s best victory thus far additionally drastically expands the battlefield they must contest. Reasonably than simply convincing a handful of federal judges, they must win over the general public writ massive.
Regardless of the partisan break up on abortion, social gathering politicking was somewhat understated on the occasion itself.
Audio system’ prayer invocations have been much more frequent than the handful of “get out the vote” plugs constituted of the stage. Flags of the Holy See and Virgin Mary banners simply outnumbered the one or two Trump flags fluttering above the group. The most typical indicators held by demonstrators have been ones urging folks to “select life” not “vote Republican.”
That speaks to the spiritual motivations animating a lot of the anti-abortion trigger. It is also an illustration that many within the crowd grasped that altering tradition was as essential as altering coverage.
“The concept is to instill in everyone the significance of human dignity. In my view, it is altering hearts over altering legal guidelines,” mentioned Katherine Griffith, who got here from Columbia, South Carolina, together with her 7-month-old to attend the rally.
That is in all probability chilly consolation for pro-choice libertarians. Nobody who spoke to Cause, or who spoke on stage, argued in opposition to outlawing abortion. However the emphasis on additionally convincing those who the follow is improper does illustrate that plenty of pro-lifers perceive that prohibition alone is not going to realize their far-reaching objectives.
The median age of demonstrators at as we speak’s march was in all probability beneath 30. Individuals who’d attended earlier Marches for Life mentioned this 12 months’s crowd was roughly the identical dimension as previous years.
That is all proof that opposition to abortion, on each a political and private degree, is not going to fade with the top of Roe or with boomers getting old out of politics.
