March for Life -revisiting it

We went to one of the first Marches for Life in our city, in the late 1970's... a few hundred showed up and we marched and ended up at a Rally which was more of an Evangelical Evangelism effort than anything else. Amidst the music groups, one speaker got up and said 'this is not a church issue but a civil rights issue'. He was basically ignored as the music went on. It was mostly unimpressive to say the least.

So I have skipped all the marches since then but this year, EWTN, the Global Catholic Network, had complete live coverage of both the March on Washington and the West Coast March for life (in San Francisco) and I decided to watch it.

I discovered things have greatly changed since the 1970's. For the March in Washington, 500,000 marchers, by most reports showed up - it looked more like a million when I watched on TV. The speakers included tearful women who regretted their abortions (and were hurt by them), Abby Johnson who ran a Planned Parenthood clinic for several years, who had recently quit her clinic and joined the Pro Life movement after watching a doctor abort a 13 week fetus using guided ultra sound, Lila Rose, a young person who went under cover as a 13 year old seeking an abortion to several Planned Parenthood clinics and discovered they were willing to cover up that her boyfriend was 22 and that they tried to talk her into an abortion and more.

One of the speakers was a Rabbi who was extremely passionate about abortion and how it was hurting women and babies.

Also on the platform were several Congress persons, Catholic Bishops and clergy. And standing behind the speakers on the platform, several women held up signs which read "I regret my abortion".

The weather was cold and grey but this did not stop or slow down the March and the most impressive thing was perhaps that a goodly portion of March attendees were young people. Young people are the hope of our country, the future and if so many of them are pro life, we are looking in much better shape than I've thought.

It rained at the West Coast March for life in San Francisco but 40,000 marchers showed up and marched in the cold rain.

Watching these marches, I'd say the future of the pro life movement looked very hopeful - there was a lot more substance than the Rally I attended 30 years ago.

Things change and sometimes for the better!