March for Life 2012

Where has Mike been? At the March for Life in Washington D.C. I would have loved to have blogged about the event beforehand, but life got in the way. So, here's my all too brief recap.

This was my second time at the march. Despite all the news stories showing "clashes" between pro-life and pro-choice protests (in near equal numbers), neither I nor anybody I spoke with has ever seen a pro-choice protester during the march. I'm told by some locals that there is a small group of a dozen or so pro-choice protesters who come with news teams for a photo shoot at the Supreme Court building early in the day, before the march starts, and then leave. As I said I have not seen it, but if you look at the news shots they never show anything but closeups featuring a small number of pro-choicers. I do know that from before the march starts until it ends the Supreme Court steps are empty. [BTW if you look at the Washington Post slideshow linked to above, my favorite is picture 4, where an "antiabortion advocate, points her finger at an abortion rights advocate" - they don't mention the blurry finger in the foregound that the abortion rights advocate is giving the antiabortion advocate]

From what I saw, this year's march was about the same size as last year, although people who have been going for many years said they thought it was bigger. The U.S. government will not allow the official head count to be released, but according to LifeSiteNews the number was estimated to be 400,000. The thing that was different about this year's march was the ages. The last march I was at was a pretty good cross section of young to old. This year the march was by far dominated by kids. By kids I mean high school and college age kids. They were religious (one group handed me free rosary beads), political (many had "I vote Pro-life first!") signs and friendly (one group was giving free hugs).

A group of young ladies and gentleman gave me an "I'm worth waiting for" sticker, although I told them that I being married with three kids, I hadn't been waiting for a long time. I saw the very vocal "Silent No More" women, the "Chicago Life Mob" people, and the TFP youth, all impeccably dressed and handing out material while the bagpipes played.

I took a few pictures, but my batteries died at some point and by the time I replaced them I had lost some good photo ops. Here's a few that I did get:


I'm sot sure what building it was, but the people on the steps in the background were all spectators who were cheering wildly as we passed, and dancing on the steps, and the ones in front were giving out the free hugs.


The brave "Silent No More" women started the march right behind us.


It's hard to see much from the middle of the march (actually we were right near the front, but it's hard to tell). The umbrellas made it harder.


We passed the Chicago "Life mob" people. I'd seen their flash mob video and their pro-life rosary video.


They were carrying two platforms with cheerleaders on them. They were singing and chanting like crazy. I can't believe the amount of energy these kids have!


Not my finest shot, but this is looking down Constitution Ave. from Capitol Hill. The yellow crane, near the left hand side of the picture, is near where the rally was before the march started. Having been near the end of the march before I can tell you that it takes something like an hour after the march starts before the people in back even get moving.


Just another random shot taken during the march. I think this is near the Supreme Court, which is where the march officially ends. However, there is a steady stream of people continuing on to go talk to their representatives. The pro-choice ones make it a point to be either out or in "staff meetings" the entire time, so you don't actually get to speak to them, but you can leave messages with their staff.


The pro-life representatives have receptions for their constituents and whoever else wants to join. This was in "the gold room" of the house offices, where Congressmen Garrett and Smith, of New Jersey, were handing out donuts, coffee and other refreshments to pro-lifers after the march. The room was packed, so we basically got some food and went searching for our pro-choice legislators.

I could write about the fun we had on five hour ride down or the five hour ride home, but I'll leave that to your imagination. I left my house at 5:30 AM and got home at 10:30 PM. A long day, but a satisfying one.

Posted in: Pro-Life,protest