Modern day feminist culture promotes building up other women, and we need to help support other women to succeed. The pro-life movement today continues to supports this mentality of one another, through all stages of life for an individual. Women face unplanned pregnancies in all parts of the world and in various walks of life. What the pro-life movement promotes is a woman’s ability to succeed with a family, for instance. This is one reason why Justice Amy Coney Barret, our most recently elected United States Supreme Court Justice, was fiercely celebrated by the pro-life movement.
As a young woman in my 20’s, I found myself at a loss for words when I discovered from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that 57.7% of abortions in this country are carried out on mothers in their 20’s. Our culture convinces twenty– year– old women that being a young mother disqualifies one from finishing a college or high school degree and limits their chances of succeeding in any career.
One consistency through all of 2020’s chaos is the importance of remaining outspokenly pro-life. For my generation and myself, the peaceful National Pro-Life March in Washington, D.C. remains a means of sharing our pro-life beliefs on a national level and combatting the lie that women need abortion in order to succeed in life. When we march, we witness to the many women who face unplanned pregnancies each year that there is an entire movement able and ready to support them in whatever stage of life they find themselves.
The National Pro-Life March occurs annually as a national memorial service for the 1/5 of my generation lost to abortion, and according to WorldoMeter’s numbers, 2.3 million children lost to abortion this year alone. Despite the large portion of humans lost to abortion each year, Planned Parenthood and other abortion conglomerates continue to push the need in our country for abortion.
Through the National Pro-Life March, we gather together in the streets of Washington, D.C. and march together to the Supreme Court. Despite the cancelation of in-person marches across the county, we stood together this year in a different way through mile long Life Chains across the country. My fellow students who stand for life choose each day to resist the false mentality that tells us women need abortion. We march each year in a peaceful protest, for we know women deserve more than abortion.
The abortion culture tells women that Planned Parenthoods and the rest of the abortion industry can help them in times of need. Yet, as abortion facilities decline, the number of pro-life pregnancy help organizations across the country continue to increase each year. A US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health article “identified 2,527” pregnancy help organizations, which outnumbers abortion facilities by a factor of 3.2. Despite the “$564 million” of federal funds received by Planned Parenthood each year, reported by I Stand With Planned Parenthood, pregnancy help organizations manage to outnumber abortion facilities in this country and serve women with little to no federal funding.
Participants in the annual March continue throughout the year to create a culture of life. Students for Life of America maintains a presence on middle, high school, college, and graduate campuses. Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director, builds a culture of life and love through her ministry “designed to assist abortion clinic workers in transitioning out of the industry.” Across the country, we stand together this year and every year since 1973 to foster a culture where women do not feel the pressure to abort their child. We stand together, hand in hand with those in any crisis situation.
The National Pro-Life March may not have happened in-person as usual, but we continue to stand in solidarity with men and women who are in need of support every day. The pro-life movement will carry on in every city of the United States and beyond because we will not stop until every woman feels supported to face an unplanned pregnancy and embrace her child.
Guest post by Erin Quinn, Students for Life leader at the University of Dallas.
