The March For Life: No One Sees It Coming

I can't believe it's almost time for the March for Life--where does the time go?

Yet here we are again (in this 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae (On the Regulation of Birth), interestingly enough). There's so much to be said, and many people will be saying it. But there's one subject I think has been widely overlooked, and that's the connection between the media's coverage of the annual March for Life in D.C. (as well as their coverage of similar marches and pro-life events across the country) and the way in which the pro-life movement has always taken very seriously President Trump's dismissal of most of the mainstream media's coverage of anything as "fake news."

That is, there isn't coverage of the annual March for Life, as this piece by Terry Mattingly over at the reliably informative and always interesting Get Religion blog indicates. Not serious coverage, at least, and certainly not coverage comparable to that given to the Women's March in 2017, or the coverage given to pro-choice marches and events.

This has been the case for decades, to the point where it's a regular joke amongst pro-lifers and Catholics. We talk about the "ninja march," watch to see just how non-existent the coverage is, and then are confirmed in our belief that the media, when it wants to, can do an impressive job of pretending that tens of thousands of people don't exist; that the country is solidly behind Roe v.Wade as settled law; that there's nothing to see here.

We watch the coverage or the lack of coverage, and we all know that the mainstream media at times offers us fake news.

And it's not just the March for Life. People have been grumbling about media bias or misinformation for at least as long as the media has failed to properly cover subjects in which the average person may have some deep experience.

Catholicism, for instance. Media coverage of Catholicism regularly sucks. And Catholics notice. We often come to distrust or at least trust less those media outlets that regularly get the faith wrong.

Now, some of the errors aren't really their fault. After all, when "fake news" has been handed down in history textbooks and classrooms as the way things are, it's no wonder that it gets reported as fact. And yet supposedly skeptical, objective journalists ought to be able to do better. The resources exist, after all, to discover that what "everyone knows" or "everyone believes" isn't true. For a start:

• The Get Religion blog, of course.
• Blind Spot: When Journalists Don't Get Religion
  
• Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History
• How Can You Still Be Catholic? 50 Answers to a Good Question

If the media would fix its coverage of pro-life events, people, and organizations--that is, be as objective about them as they claim to be, and as (I truly believe) they actually aspire to be--then a great deal of trust could be restored in the reading, viewing, and listening public. Get your coverage of Christianity right--not that you must be orthodox, but merely that you have the sort of factual accuracy, insight, and objectivity that journalists such as the excellent John Allen bring to bear--and a great deal more trust could be restored. Cover all religious news with true objectivity and rigor, and you could change the world.

Anyway. All this was spawned by the upcoming March for Life. One other note on pro-life affairs, then, before I conclude.

I've heard it said several times, "Pro-life people care so much about the child in the womb, but can't be bothered to help take care of the child after birth!"

And I'm always amazed that somehow, no one has shown them Mother Teresa's talk from the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C, on February 5, 1994. Among many other things well worth reading, she said:

We are fighting abortion by adoption — by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals and police stations: “Please don’t destroy the child; we will take the child.” So we always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: “Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child.” And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have a child — but I never give a child to a couple who have done something not to have a child. Jesus said, “Anyone who receives a child in my name, receives me.” By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus but, by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus.

Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child. From our children’s home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3000 children from abortion. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents and have grown up so full of love and joy.

I know that couples have to plan their family and for that there is natural family planning. ...

And it's not just Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity, as Helen Alvare and her coauthors explain:

In the United States there are some 2,300 affiliates of the three largest pregnancy resource center umbrella groups, Heartbeat International, CareNet, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA).

Over 1.9 million American women take advantage of these services each year. Many stay at one of the 350 residential facilities for women and children operated by pro-life groups. In New York City alone, there are twenty-two centers serving 12,000 women a year. These centers provide services including pre-natal care, STI testing, STI treatment, ultrasound, childbirth classes, labor coaching, midwife services, lactation consultation, nutrition consulting, social work, abstinence education, parenting classes, material assistance, and post-abortion counseling.

Religious groups also provide crucial services to needy mothers and infants. John Cardinal O’Connor, the late Archbishop of New York, famously pledged to assist any woman from anywhere experiencing a crisis pregnancy, and the current Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, recently renewed Cardinal O’Connor’s pledge.

The Catholic Church–perhaps the single most influential pro-life institution in the United States–makes the largest financial, institutional and personnel commitments to charitable causes of any private source in the United States. These include AIDS ministry, health care, education, housing services, and care for the elderly, disabled, and immigrants. In 2004 alone, 562 Catholic hospitals treated over 85 million patients; Catholic elementary and high schools educated over 2 million students; Catholic colleges educated nearly 800,000 students; Catholic Charities served over eight-and-a-half million different individuals. In 2007, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development awarded nine million dollars in grants to reduce poverty. And in 2009, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network spent nearly five million dollars in services for impoverished immigrants. ...

So as we approach the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, take some time to read up on the history of the debate, the arguments on both sides, and the accounts of those who have taken an active role in the abortion industry only to leave it all behind for pro-life causes.

• Won by Love
• The Walls Are Talking: Former Abortion Clinic Workers Tell Their Stories
• The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by The Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind
• Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line
  

Unborn Victims of Violence Act, Roe v. Wade, and Doublethink

The incoherency of modern American law on unborn human beings. Excerpts:

...“Well, if it were established that an unborn fetus is a person within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, you would have almost an impossible case here, would you not?” Mrs. Weddington replied, “I would have a very difficult case.” And then she laughed nervously. Justice Stewart, not laughing at all, continued that this is akin to ruling that if a ”mother thought that it bothered her health having the child around, she could have it killed.” Mrs. Weddington said, “That’s correct,” and declined any further response.

Our laws still, chillingly, reflect this inconsistency. On the one hand, we have the almost decade long 2004 Unborn Victims of Violence Act which federally recognizes a “child in utero” as a legal “victim” if he or she is injured or killed by crimes of violence, and laws such as the one decided in Alabama this month that recognize “unborn children are persons with rights that should be protected by law.” On the other hand, we have abortion for all nine months of pregnancy and impunity for the ones that kill those children, children who are not even guaranteed the protections given to convicted murderers and rapists in some states. It was not funny 40 years ago, and it is still no laughing matter. These are children being killed. Aren’t children people too?

Northwest March for Life

Hey, Washingtonians!

On Tuesday, January 22, 2013, the 35th annual March for Life and Rally will be held in Olympia at Noon...

Bring a friend, a church group, a civic or campus group. Carry a red rose, the symbol of the pro-life movement and the victims of abortion. You are encouraged to bring a sign identifying the area you come from or the group represented. We want to acknowledge your group and provide you with a program of the day’s events...

According to the terms of our permit, there can be no solicitations of any sort on the Campus. Please do not violate our permit...

There will be a Mass prior to the March. 9:30AM with Archbishop Peter Sartain @ Marcus Pavilion, St. Martin's University, Lacey, WA. (5000 Abbey Way SE, Lacey, WA 98503-7500)

Time-Lapse Vid of March for Life 2011

by AirMaria:

And a lovely snark on the dearth of media willingness to notice what occurred in the nation's capital.  Excerpts follow:

The U.S. military is reportedly looking into state of the art stealth technology employed by pro-lifers at least once a year.

Said one Pentagon official: "Once a year on the same day they announce the time and the date they're going to have thousands of people march into Washington D.C. but every year they come and go without anyone even noticing them. It's quite amazing."

This is especially worrisome since the Department of Homeland Security previously labeled "opponents of abortion" as likely to engage in acts of terror...

The Pentagon is reportedly looking into how these pro-lifers essentially invade a city without anyone noticing. Their hope is to employ such capability to update their own stealth ground attack maneuvers.

This pro-life operating capability has oddly become more effective the larger the crowds have become. In 1974, 20,000 people marched in the March for Life and were hardly noticed but in the past few years hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers have managed to enter the capitol of the United States of America without hardly any notice...

Oddly, liberal activists tend to have an exact opposite capability in that even if only a dozen anti-war or liberal activists show up anywhere with signs, it seems to attract the notice of all media organizations and the culture at large...

When They Claim the Women Weren't There

Don't believe a word of it. I was there and saw the women out in force. There was a large contingent from the Silent No More Awareness Campaign carrying signs saying "I Regret My Abortion"--their cofounders spoke at the rally. And a majority of the crowd was young--students from high schools and colleges from across the country out in force to March for Life. At least half the crowd was female, if not more. The Mall was jam packed with people--it was difficult to move at times, actually. There was literally a sea of people there, with ripples and currents showing up as people tried to move through the crowd, setting of chain reactions of people bumping into people. Signs were out in force. Steven Greydanus responds to CNN and other news outlets who obviously were not at the same March I attended:

I glanced at some of the mainstream media coverage of the march. The mendacity of the MSM is not to be believed. ...here’s the lede on CNN.com’s “coverage” of the March:

Abortion rights supporters and opponents hit the streets of the nation’s capital Friday to mark the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling establishing a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

“Abortion rights supporters and opponents.” Supporters first, opponents second, with no indication whatsoever of the relative sizes of the two groups. Nowhere in the article is there any indication whatsoever of how many of each group were present. Not even “tens of thousands” or even just “thousands” of pro-lifers. Just “Abortion rights supporters and opponents.”

...This was not a meeting or juxtaposition of two opposed demonstrations, however equal or unequal. It was a massive pro-life demonstration with a few counter-demonstrators. We were the event; they were a tiny footnote. That is simply a fact that the CNN.com piece is nakedly attempting to bury...

Ironically, even that one photographic bit of evidence from the buried CNN.com photo refutes another lie promoted by a Newsweek.com blog post, that “young women” were “missing” at the March—that “a majority of the participants are in their 60s.”

Take a gander at CNN.com’s buried picture. Who’s carrying that banner? Why ... They’re all young women! I guess CNN didn’t get the memo on the “no young women” meme.

The post does go on to indicate that the “no young women” meme is based on previous years, and that a “surge of young women” is possible this year. I was there last year too. There was no shortage of young women.

“A majority of the participants are in their 60s”? A majority? As in over half? Is Newsweek serious? If one person in 20 was in their 60s, it would be a lot. Take another look at that photo. Can you find anyone who looks like they’re probably in their 60s? If you look long and hard enough, you might find enough to count on one hand. How many can you find who look to be in their 20s or 30s? It’s like every other person...

His live-blogging from the March captures the sheer size of the event. Again--I don't think I've ever been in a crowd that large before. This Washington Post commentator attended the same March I did:

I went to the March for Life rally Friday on the Mall expecting to write about its irrelevance. Isn't it quaint, I thought, that these abortion protesters show up each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, even though the decision still stands after 37 years. What's more, with a Democrat in the White House likely to appoint justices who support abortion rights, surely the Supreme Court isn't going to overturn Roe in the foreseeable future. How wrong I was...I was especially struck by the large number of young people among the tens of thousands at the march. It suggests that the battle over abortion will endure for a long time to come.

"We are the pro-life generation," said signs carried by the crowd, about half its members appearing to be younger than 30. There were numerous large groups of teenagers, many bused in by Roman Catholic schools and youth groups. They and their adult leaders said the youths were taught from an early age to oppose abortion...

And I really don't think I saw a single pro-choice protester during the March. I looked. I really expected some strong reactions this year in the wake of the Stupak Amendment, the Brown election, and the sudden crisis for the health care legislation, but all I could see was the massive tidal wave of pro-lifers unable to move at times because of the sheer number of people.