This year’s March for Life in Washington has been cancelled – or perhaps I should say “Cancelled” – who would have guessed?
The first March for Life was a protest against the notorious U.S. Supreme Court decisions Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton, which together effectively wiped out all state laws restricting abortion. It was held 48 years ago on January 22nd, 1974, on the first anniversary of the twin rulings. The first march had about 20,000 attendees. The marchers have come back every year, with steadily growing numbers: when I attended in 2019 and 2020 there were hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic, joyful pro-lifers in attendance. Several different MFL veterans of many years assured me that last year’s march was the largest they had ever seen. There has never in American history been anything like this: a massive gathering, repeated annually over nearly half a century, where the size and enthusiasm of the crowd just keeps growing.
Until now. Strictly speaking, the entire event hasn’t been cancelled, but it certainly has been “Cancelled.” Instead of hundreds of thousands of people from around the United States (and from around the world) gathering together, the 2021 March for Life will be attended by only “a small group of pro-life leaders.” The rest of us can participate “virtually,” sitting in front of little glowing screens in the isolation of our own homes. The official press release from the March for Life explains:
The protection of all of those who participate in the annual March, as well as the many law enforcement personnel and others who work tirelessly each year to ensure a safe and peaceful event, is a top priority of the March for Life. In light of the fact that we are in the midst of a pandemic which may be peaking, and in view of the heightened pressures that law enforcement officers and others are currently facing in and around the Capitol, this year’s March for Life will look different.
Yes, it will look very different. For the first time in nearly half a century, the March for Life is being shut down because of the fear of political violence. To be sure, march organizers also cite Covid 19, but there was no talk of shutting down the rally before the Big Tech-Progressive Syndicate turned the vandalism at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th into our own Reichstag Fire. It’s clear now that the communications cartel that dismissed months of ongoing left wing violence over the past year as “mostly peaceful protests” won’t hesitate to seize upon the slightest disorder at the March for Life to vilify the pro-life movement, and to push pro-life voices into the outer darkness . . . and we can be sure that there are provocateurs ready to step in to provide that disorder, knowing that they’re protected. The politicians who weaponized the Capitol riot as a pretext to impeach (again) the outgoing President Trump can also be counted upon to use any excuse to wield the full weight of government power against those who speak up for the truth of human life.
The key word there is truth. Truth wins out, if people know it. I’ve also reposted a piece I first wrote six years ago (“The Truth is Pro-Life“) about the power of ultrasound to demonstrate the truth that unborn babies are human beings; the abortion industry and its apologists work tirelessly to keep ultrasound away from prospective customers, because when women realize that truth they overwhelmingly choose life for their child. As we saw during the recent election campaign, powerful communications entities will not only ignore information injurious to their preferred outcomes, but will seek to “deplatform” individuals and even major news organizations that try to speak the truth in public.
Ultimately, this is bigger than an election, and even bigger than the sanctity of human life. The Church is the Body of Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (see John 4:16). All the smaller truths that Church proclaims in this world flow from that larger Truth; the opposition to those truths, and to that Truth, ultimately derives from “the principalities, . . . the powers, . . . the world rulers of this present darkness, . . . the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (from Ephesians 6:12). Those principalities and powers are eager most of all to drown the message of Christ, because that is the biggest obstacle to their having their way in this world. They’re coming after us. “Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Ephesian 6:13).
