For more than four decades, pro-life Americans have descended upon Washington, D.C., each year to march and make their voices heard, speaking out against abortion and in favor of rights for the unborn.
And this Friday, the crowds will once again assemble to send that same message — only this year’s event is particularly noteworthy, as comes on the heels of President Donald Trump’s inauguration as well as the much-discussed Women’s March that unfolded last weekend in Washington, D.C., and in additional cities across America.
READ: Majority of Clinton Supporters Want Significant Restrictions on Abortion, Poll Finds
It’s no secret that the Women’s March featured many pro-choice activists with certain values that stand diametrically opposed to those who plan to take part in the March for Life. In fact, as has been reported, some pro-lifers were purportedly banned from sponsoring the Women’s March.
Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, told Faithwire this week that she was “saddened to see the amount of anger” that she observed at that march, noting that there’s a stark difference when it comes to the tone one will observe at the March for Life. See a video from last year’s March for Life below:
“You’ll never see a marcher threaten to blow up any house, much less the White House,” Mancini said, referring to comments made at the Women’s March by pop star Madonna — comments the singer later said were taken out of context. “I was saddened by the pro-choice perspective … I do think it’s very different from the March for Life.”
Originally, Mancini said she was planning to participate in the Women’s March, but that the platform ended up bring too pro-abortion, thus — in her view — failing to take into consideration and include a diversity of women’s voices.
“It makes me sad that they basically shushed the voice of pro-life women,” she said. “Young women deserve so much better … you need to have a variety of voices; they’re really holding a low bar on women.”
And as it turns out, Mancini said the Women’s March has sparked a plethora of interest in the March for Life — so much so that the organization has had to bring in two full-time volunteers to handle the large volume of phone calls and emails that have come flooding in over the past few days.
“I think the fact that the pro-life voice was silenced angered some people,” she said, noting that many of those reaching out to the March for Life had never before attended.
Mancini went on to discuss her hopes and aims for this week’s march, explaining that there’s an important sentiment she’s hoping to drive home: that one person truly can change the world.
“Our biggest hope is that we are able to motivate people with the theme, ‘The power of one,'” she said, noting that author J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in the “Lord of the Rings” that “even the smallest person can change the course of history.”
Mancini continued, “Our hope is to motivate marchers…that they have a particular call, a particular role to play and to look deep in their hearts (to discover it).”
Speaking more broadly to the importance of valuing life in American culture, Mancini said that a truly thriving and flourishing society is one that “has the inherent respect for the dignity of the person as its bedrock”; she affirmed that being pro-life means much more than defending babies prior to their birth.
Instead, she said it extends to policies that help the entire human being — at all stages in his or her life — flourish.
“A society that’s going to be most fruitful, have the least amount of crime … is going to be a society where a culture of life and a culture of love is the bedrock foundation,” Mancini said.
While abortion has been ticking down, she said the stunning figure of 58 million abortions since 1973 is absolutely chilling, going on to note that there are still around 1 million abortions annually. Find out more about the march here.
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