March for Life Protesters Brave Blizzard to Speak for the Unborn
WASHINGTON -- Despite threats Washington officials might yank the March for Life's permit because of a dire storm threat, the march went on Friday.
Its participants refused to let a record-breaking blizzard bearing down on the nation's capitol stop them from their mission. Like in the 42 years before, they came determined to bear witness that multitudes of Americans hate abortion.
Starting on the National Mall, they've been marching on the Supreme Court to protest ever since it legalized abortion January 22, 1973. This year's theme: "Pro-Life and Pro-Woman Go Hand-in-Hand."
"I'm so thrilled with the theme of this year's march," Maureen Ferguson, senior policy advisor for The Catholic Association, told CBN News.
"It's so wild-timed because the pro-abortion side, of course, loves to use this as a political football and bandy around terms like 'the war on women.' But we know there's a war on women in the womb," she said. "Half of those babies aborted are little girls."
Catholic Association Senior Fellow Ashley Maguire explained the earliest American feminists were pro-life.
"Starting with the suffragettes who were fighting against slavery and then fought for their own rights to vote - they were very pro-life," Maguire said. "And so the idea that women are by nature pro-choice is completely false."
"And we know that abortion sadly leaves a woman wounded, sometimes physically; emotionally scarred with a hole in her heart for the rest of her life," Ferguson added.
"A woman's capacity to be a mother is empowering and it's a beautiful gift that's a part of who she is as a person," Jeanne Mancini, who leads the March for Life, said.
Subverted author Sue Ellen Browder was once a pro-choice feminist working at Cosmopolitan. That is no longer the case.
"To be pro-woman is to be pro-life, and of course that's true," she told CBN News before speaking at the March for Life rally. "You know, women want to have babies. Babies bring us joy, happiness, wonder."
Lauren Handy, with the group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, counsels women heading into abortion clinics. She gets angry at those who accuse her of waging a war on those women.
"I think they use inflammatory language and scare tactics when we try to meet the needs of both the child and the mother, because we know abortion hurts the mother, the father and the child," she said.
Monica Miller, with Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, rejects that the right to this procedure is a key component of women's liberation.
"The sadness and the tragedy of that skewed, perverted point of view - that we actually would have to kill someone, end the life of someone else in order to be free - that's not a freedom," she explained.
"It looks easier and more fun not to have babies sometimes," Browder added. "But in the long run, especially when you get to be my age, and you see the women that did have children and how happy they are and how blessed they are with grandchildren and all that - whereas the old ladies in the nursing home, because they thought they were all free and alone, they're still alone."
"Abortion impacts women negatively, both psychologically and physiologically," Mancini insisted. "In fact we're hearing this week from a new Marist poll that the large majority of Americans believe that abortion hurts women, that it's not good for women, by a 35 percent margin."
Kristan Hawkins told CBN News how her group Students for Life of America constantly looks for ways to minister to young women considering this life-altering decision.
"We're always making sure that we're appealing to her and talking to her about how she's a victim, too," Hawkins shared. "And how the abortion industry, led by Planned Parenthood, is directly targeting her."
Planned Parenthood has become a major target of the marchers since it is by far the largest abortion-provider in the country. It ends the lives of more than 300,000 unborn babies every year.
