The annual March for Life usually comes with frosty temperatures and mainstream media brushoff, and while the wind-chill in Washington D.C. was cold on Jan. 21 when the 49th March took place, the event did garner more attention with the specter of Roe v. Wade to be overturned or at least gutted later this year.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Dec. 1 in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, widely considered the first formidable threat to the SCOTUS’s 1973 Roe ruling legalizing abortion in the U.S. throughout pregnancy.
The Dobbs case concerns the Mississippi Gestational Age Act, which bans abortion with some exceptions at 15 weeks based upon the fact that the child in the womb at that point can feel pain. A decision is expected by June and is eagerly anticipated by the pro-life community.
More than 63 million unborn lives have been lost to abortion in the U.S. since the Roe decision.
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The prospect of Roe and its subsequent follow-up Planned Parenthood v. Casey to be ended added an extra air of optimism to the March, an event already permeated by positivity as hundreds of thousands of pro-life pilgrims travel to Washington D.C. each year to give public witness to the sanctity of unborn human life. Multiple establishment news outlets acknowledged the March in the context of Roe possibly being overturned.
A recent Marist poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus found that the vast majority of Americans want abortion laws that are not allowed under the Supreme Court’s Roe and Casey rulings.
Each year countless homemade and professionally produced signs punctuate the March with pro-life slogans and messages. And the crowd at the March, often called the largest human rights demonstration in the world, has a significant representation of young people passionate about life, prompting the “pro-life generation” slogan.
One estimate for attendance for the 2022 March had numbers approaching 150,000. The number of March participants was as high as 500,000 in recent years. That as many pro-lifers came to the nation’s Capital as did this year signals pro-life commitment, as last year’s event was significantly diminished amid Coronavirus response, and given D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser's having declared a city-wide virus shot mandate put into effect just prior to the March, and unrest there over the last year and a half.
In addition to the national March for Life, the pro-life movement has also begun establishing marches elsewhere in cities across the U.S.
The theme for the 2022 March for Life was, "Equality Begins in the Womb," referencing that unborn children with disabilities, in particular Down syndrome, are targeted for elimination via abortion. March for Life theme info offered research finding that at least 67% of American babies with Down syndrome are aborted.
Katie Shaw, a pro-life advocate with Down syndrome, was among the March rally speakers. Pro-life Christian actor Kirk Cameron spoke as well, along with popular The Bible in a Year podcast host Father Mike Schmitz.
Across the numerous national March-sponsored and related events this year, speakers remarked on the possibility of Dobbs leading to the end of Roe, some even speculating that this year’s March could be the last. They then expressed the importance of the pro-life movement being prepared for a post-Roe America.
This typically included mention of bolstering pregnancy help, with calls for pro-life advocates to step things up in this regard.
The upwards of 3,000 pregnancy centers and medical clinics in the U.S., along with non-profit adoption agencies and maternity homes, continually provide approximately two million people - moms and families in need - with medical services, parenting, sexual risk avoidance and abortion recovery programs each year, along with material assistance, referrals and support.
The pregnancy help movement, which started some 50 years ago, prior to Roe, will still be there for women after its end.
