This morning and afternoon marked the 45th March for Life in Washington, and tonight the March for Life’s Rose Dinner took place with Pam Tebow as keynote at the Marriott Renaissance. Pam spoke about human dignity broadly, her family’s international humanitarian work, and the story of her son Tim, whom physicians had recommended she abort:
Afterwards, I walked the mile or so from Mount Vernon Square back to the Phoenix Park Hotel, through Chinatown, past Clyde’s of Gallery Place where the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network board met last night, past the National Portrait Gallery, and ultimately which a brief glimpse at the beautiful Capitol dome, which inspires with the ideals that our politics aspires to in its better moments.
Terry Mattingly offers perspective on the March for Life’s historical lack of media coverage, even compared to similar marches and demonstrations. He excerpts the following Medical Research Project summary of a history of indifference:
The March for Life is a powerful event, one that sheds a spotlight on human rights and dignity. It also brings together men and women of all ages and races, Catholics and Protestants and the religious and scientific communities who believe that life starts at conception. It’s a message those on the political left don’t want to broadcast. It’s also one they don’t want to help further with the help of any meaningful news coverage.
A study conducted by the Media Research Project, a conservative watchdog group, found that CBS, NBC and ABC spent an hour and 15 minutes combined covering last year’s Women’s March held in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. That’s the same Women’s March organizers made sure did not include any pro-life groups.
By comparison, the same group found that the March for Life in 2016 had earned only 35 seconds of coverage from the same three major TV networks – just 13 seconds before it took place and 22 seconds after it was held. The Women’s March had garnered 23 minutes of coverage before it took place.
The situation was similar when it came to online news stories. The phrase “Women’s March 2017” garnered 7,650 mentions on Google News. The same search term for “March for Life 2017” saw a similar disparity – just 474 results.
President Trump became the first president to join the March for Life with a live address from the Rose Garden, where he underscored the stark reality of our laws:
Roe versus Wade has resulted in some of the most permissive abortion laws anywhere in the world. For example, in the United States, it’s one of only seven countries to allow elective late-term abortions along with China, North Korea, and others. Right now, in a number of States, the laws allow a baby to be aborted from his or her mother’s womb in the ninth month. It is wrong. It has to change.
The House of Representatives, meanwhile, passed the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” today. It will fail in the Senate, where it requires 60 votes to pass, but it is an important step on the road toward protecting human beings who survive failed abortions, ensuring they are transferred from abortion clinics to legitimate medical facilities for care. It’s a fact that today, persons accidentally allowed to be born during an attempted abortion are sometimes simply left to die rather than provided basic care.
And finally, the Department of Health and Human Services today announced the creation of a first-ever “Conscience and Religious Freedom” division meant to “protect doctors, nurses, midwives and other health care workers who refuse to perform, accommodate or assist with certain procedures on religious or moral grounds” and also provides a mechanism for those persons to “file complaints if they believe they have been discriminated against because of their religious or moral convictions.”
That such executive and legislative actions are necessary in the face of the clear and straightforward language of the constitution’s acknowledgement of the right to life, not even to speak of the cultural refusal to acknowledge embryological science as it relates to human rights, is a testament to the fact that ours is not an age of reason, but rather one of power and feeling.