50th National March For Life, 1st Post Roe
The March for Life has been a staple in my life for the last 20 years.
In 2001, I moved to Washington DC as a young law student and had the opportunity to attend an annual protest that had already been going on every single year since 1974.
The March for Life was always a bittersweet event in which pro-lifers would find strength in numbers and the warmth of relationships with friends and family coming together from around the country. It would also be a reminder of the fact that we marched because our nation was marching in a different direction and simply did not believe in putting an end to the brutal murder of the preborn.
Ironically, it was not until the election of the brash businessman from New York; the one with a spotty (to say the least) moral track record, and his polished evangelical VP, that the pro-life movement really stood a chance to advance towards overturning Roe v. Wade.
Not only did President Trump providentially deliver three of the five votes on the Supreme Court necessary to overturn Roe v. Wade; in 2020, he also became the first US President in nearly 50 years to attend the March for Life in person. The great Ronald Reagan hadn’t attended, Bush Sr. did not attend, and neither did Bush Jr. President Donald J. Trump did.
In 2022, President Trump could claim the rewards of his brilliant judicial appointments as the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Neither Trump nor the other politicians involved, or the justices, or the pro-life movement for that matter have been perfect, but thanks to all coming together, Roe v. Wade was tossed to the ash heap of history. And that is what the March for Life always signified, a coming together of the pro-life movement within a fractured society.
The fiftieth March for Life, felt different because it was more than a coming together, it was breaking new ground as the first post-Roe march.
The organizers reflected this new era by changing the route of the march, channeling the tens of thousands of pro-lifers to the two large buildings that host the offices of the House of Representatives just South of the Capitol and then turning North to parade in front of the US Senate.
The federal courts will now sit on the sidelines as the federal, state, and local legislators will determine the fate of untold numbers of preborn children ruthlessly targeted by the culture of death and its proponents at all levels of society.
From the federal political arena, two solidly pro-life Republicans from the House of Representatives, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and NJ Rep. Chris Smith gave great speeches.
An African American Democrat state legislator from Connecticut gave a poetic speech highlighting the damage and abuse that abortion has brought upon the black community in America and gave hope to the March attendees that the Democrat party may still change from its current rabid pro-abortion advocacy.
The headline speakers for the 2023 March for Life were especially superb this year.
Jonathan Roumie gave a deeply passionate and well thought out speech on the need to stand up for the right to life. He is in the prime of his professional career and displayed great courage in taking the stage and opposing abortion. He did not make any friends in Hollywood, but he surely made God smile.
He began by jokingly letting everyone know he was not Jesus, although he has become identified with his character in the hit TV series “The Chosen.” His whole speech is worth watching, but here is a highlight in which he explains how the principle of the Imago Dei is the foundation of our respect for all innocent human life.
The other headline speaker was NFL Hall of Famer and Super Bowl Champion (as a coach and as a player), Tony Dungy, who gave a beautiful life-affirming speech along with his wife and one of his 11 children (eight of them adopted.)
The evil of abortion is far from defeated in the United States or in the rest of the world, but at least one enemy, the federal judiciary has been vanquished.
As the focus of pro-life activists turns to state and local legislators, the great attendance at this year’s March for life shows that there is a real desire for national pro-life unity and a need for national level advocacy both with federal legislators and the national media.
The 2023 March for life was a great success.
