Let me see if I get this straight. Pro-lifers in massive numbers assemble in our nation’s capitol without fail every year for 30 years and there is so little chatter in newsrooms you can hear a pin drop.
But let the pro-abortion crowd tell its buddies in the media that it is going to put on a march “too big to ignore,” and there is no hoopla so outrageously self-congratulatory that it can’t be repeated uncritically. Which brings us to Sunday’s “March for Women's Lives."
If you happen to read the Washington Post story last week, written in that breathless "can-you-imagine-that?" tone that pro-abortion sycophants habitually adopt, you’d come away convinced that the “four cramped rooms in a downtown Washington office building” house an operation that is the very epitome of controlled energy, undying dedication, and an organization so sophisticated that it puts the major political parties to shame.
And the march does have an impressive number of co-sponsors. They are the usual suspects except for one: the NAACP, “which for the first time in its 95-year history,” the Post tells us, “endorsed an abortion rights march.” That is truly sad.
Surprisingly, a much different profile appears in this week’s "Newsweek" magazine. The title of the lead article is “Generation Ambivalent.”
So, while there’s plenty about organizational minutiae, the real gist of the story is explained in the article’s subhead: “On the eve of the biggest abortion-rights march in a decade, organizers try to attract a younger crowd.”
To her credit Debra Rosenberg gets right to the point. Near the end of the first paragraph, she writes, “Some of the volunteers reminisced about marches of years past. But Laura Kopp, 18, had little to be misty-eyed about. An intern at a nearby law office, the Antioch College freshman acknowledges that not all of her peers find abortion rights an easy sell. ‘We're the first generation to be more pro-life than our parents,’ she says."
Of course the bulk of the story is how “abortion-rights leaders are aiming to change that”—they vow to use the rally to “inspire a new wave of young abortion-rights activists.” But the story includes such discouraging information (from the pro-abortion perspective) as the discomforting fact that for years the percentage of college freshmen supporting abortion has eroded steadily.
Naturally, the kneejerk reaction is to attribute this to younger women taking legal abortion “for granted.” But, again, to Rosenberg’s credit, she provides the counter-view.
“Some disagree with the abortion-rights movement entirely. ‘They just assumed we'd be on their side,’ says Boston College student Kelly Kroll, 21, a former president of American Collegians for Life.”
When added to the recent passage of two pieces of pro-life legislation and the presence of a “hostile administration in the White House,” and, given that control of the Supreme Court “is up for grabs,” it has pro-abortion leaders “sounding the alarm.” The “alarm” is sounded (as it is every two years) by outgoing NARAL President Kate Michelman.
“‘This generation of women doesn't really believe they're going to lose their right to choose,’ says Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, one of seven groups sponsoring the march.” But regaining the momentum isn't quite like flipping on a switch.
“Motivating the next generation may not be easy,” Rosenberg writes. At “Hillary Clinton's famously feminist alma mater,” Wellesley College, “only 55 students plan to board buses for Washington."
Some female college students simply have too many irons in the fire. Others say they’re supportive but have no use for “old-style political activism.” One told Newsweek, "I would never hold a sign that said MY BODY, MY CHOICE or anything like that.”
On Friday, we’ll take a follow-up look, including a look see at some of the questions that Rosenberg asked Michelman in an interview at NARAL headquarters. It’ll be worth your while to stop by.
Let me see if I get this straight. Pro-lifers in massive numbers assemble in our nation’s capitol without fail every year for 30 years and there is so little chatter in newsrooms you can hear a pin drop.