By DEXTER DUGGAN
WASHINGTON, D. C. — In a significant confluence of time and events, Obamacare came crashing to a halt as hundreds of thousands of pro- lifers cascaded into town here, coinciding with the arrival of the political man of the moment,Massachusetts’ Republican Sen.elect Scott Brown, who came to shake, and shake hands on, Capitol Hill.
Brown’s momentous win of the late and liberal Edward Kennedy’s longtime Senate seat on January 19made terrified congressional Democrats run for the exits, dropping the clubs they’d been using to hammer deadly nationalized Stealthcare down Americans’ throats. Still, Barack Obama and his advisers plotted how to resurrectthissocialized- medicinecorpse.
As legions of pro-lifers gathered here for the 37th annual national rally and March for Life on January22, the top headline of the
Washington Examiner on newsracks blared, “ Dems Ditch Obamacare.”
Perhaps as portentous was the unmistakably large participation by young people in pro- life rallies and marches, not only here but also across the nation — the next generation determined to win the fight for life, no matter how long the culture of death tries to resist.
Pausing at the Smithsonian Institution’s iconic “ castle” building, Fr. Brian Nelson, from the Diocese of Wichita, Kans., told The Wanderer,
“ What impresses me about the march is it’s overwhelmingly young. . . . [ Young people] feel so strongly about it. . . . They understand.”
Nelson, ordained a priest in 2003 and currently pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in South Hutchinson, Kans., said 12 busloads of marchers drove 24 hours from his diocese to show their witness in the nation’s capital.
Seventeen- year- old Kentuckian Natalie Buller, waiting to attend a 10 a. m. pro- life Mass at St. Dominic Church before the Washington march, told The Wanderer, “ I think it’s just important that we’re here. People really do care about this. . . . People are going to keep fighting until they see a change.”
Standing next to her and voicing similar determination were Kelsey Bertsch, 17, and Rachel Murrin, 15, all from Newport, Ky., Central Catholic High School. They said they’d ridden 12 hours on buses in a group of about 600 people to rally.
Preaching earlier against abortion and euthanasia at the 8 a. m. daily Mass at St. Dominic’s, located near L’Enfant Plaza, a priest expressed “ our love and concern for the least of our brothers and sisters. . . . [ Jesus said,] What you do to the least, you do it for Him. . . . ‘ I come to give life, and to give it to the full.’ May God bless us all.” One of the other religious bodies that joined in the Washington pro- life observance, the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod, said in a statement that it “ has consistently affirmed and given thanks to God for the miracle of human life from conception until natural death, and fought for its preservation. We have also taken action through international and domestic programs to demonstrate our care and compassion for those who live on the other side of the world, for our neighbor down the street, and for the unborn in the womb.”
The Washington Times said “an estimated 200,000” pro-lifers participated on the D.C. Mall. ZENIT News Agency said “some 300,000” rallied for pro- life here. LifeSiteNews.com said March for Life organizer Nellie Gray said the number of marchers “far exceeded” last year’s figure, “which was estimated at well over 300,000.”
The estimate far in excess of 300,000 “ was echoed by many longtime March for Life participants,” LifeSiteNews.com said.
After numerous pro- lifers’ remarks at the rally on the Mall, the march toward the Capitol and the Supreme Court building began shortly after 2 p.m. Still, the march had so many participants that the people I stood among had to wait nearly 25 minutes longer before our part of the throng could start walking.
With stocking caps, heavy coats, and gloves the order of the chilling day, it was cold enough that the ink in my ballpoint pen flowed less easily. People were packed so tightly, it was difficult to write on a reporter’s notepad.
Later, I climbed the steps at the Labor Department and looked left and right along Constitution Avenue. A river of people flowed by, filling the street and sidewalks as far as could be seen in either direction. No matter the crowd figure, it far exceeded the pro-abortion Washington Post’s grudging acknowledgment of “tens of thousands” of participants.
Still, on January 24 Post columnist Robert McCartney wrote that he went to the march “ expecting to write about its irrelevance.” But, he concluded, “How wrong I was,” estimating that “about half its members appear[ed] to be younger than 30.”
McCartney, who wrote that he supports the Supreme Court’s January 22, 1973, abortion ruling but is “justifiably nervous” upon viewing the march, said, “In this case, I was especially struck by the large number of young people among the tens of thousands at the march. It suggests that the battle over abortion will endure for a long time to come.”
A Monster March
On the opposite side of the country, the sixth annual Walk for Life West Coast reported that at least 35,000 people joined its San Francisco rally and march on January 23. Syndicated radio talk host Michael Savage, praising the west coast gathering and its large number of young people of different races, noted that it was “one of many” pro-life events across the nation.
Savage was surprised to see the walk as he ate at Fisherman’s Wharf, he told his national radio audience. “It was a monster march” that kept passing by “the entire 30 minutes I was eating,” he said, commenting that “I couldn’t believe the demographics of the march” because of its various, youthful racial groups, not simply old white persons, as the media would have people believe. Savage added that he loves old, white people, though; they “ built the country.”
The “No-Choice” Side
As for Scott Brown’s January 19 Senate victory over radical pro-abortionist Democrat Martha Coakley, lifelong Massachusetts resident Danielle Huntley, 25, toldThe Wanderer
there was a spirit among Bay State voters that she hadn’t seen previously, a feeling they really could make a difference this time.
Huntley, a Boston resident who came to Washington, D.C., for the January 22 march, said, “You just felt an excitement at the polls that you’ve never seen before,” a feeling “we’re going to stick it” to the establishment. She wondered at the potential for this kind of voter attitude to grow.
She said that her father’s polling place had only one sign for Coakley amid all the pro-Brown signs.
While Coakley campaigned as a supporter of Obamacare and as a strong pro-abortionist who suggested Catholic medical personnel shouldn’t work in emergency rooms because of their moral views, Brown assured the public that he’d vote against Obamacare if he won.
A Capitol Hill staff official, who declined to be named because of what he said is his politically “sensitive position,” spoke in his office withThe Wanderer shortly before the national March for Life’s rally began.
He said the size of Brown’s 100,000-vote margin of victory over Coakley was due to her clumsy statements such as suggesting that Catholic medical workers shouldn’t be in emergency rooms.
The official characterized Brown’s election as “an extraordinary event in American history” where “people had the opportunity to correct the course of the political [direction], and did so.”
Describing Coakley as a pro-abortion extremist, the staffer said, “Weshould not delude ourselves. The public does not like abortion and does not like abortionists. . . . They also don’t like pro-lifers. I think we should identify pro-lifers as people who want to give women choices.”
But the public “look[s] on prolifers as judgmental head- bashers. . . . We do not show sufficiently” the no- choice side of a movement that calls itself “ pro- choice,” he added.
Abortionists take advantage of women in their vulnerability, “ and they do it for money,” he said.
If one eliminates the factor of pressure, there would be many fewer abortions, he said. “ How many frightened 16- year- old girls are forced to undergo an abortion because their parents want to be spared some embarrassment?. . .
These are the themes the pro- life movement . . . needs to adopt.”
As for Obamacare and Brown’s election, the staff official said people around Obama made it plain the intention was to go toward a single-payer, British-style National Health Service system, and they had to try to jam it through Congress on a partisan basis. But suddenly they faced “the psychological impact of seeing a Republican winning a special election in Massachusetts.”
Although congressional Democrats had followed their leaders, “Party discipline is now a thing of the past” because of the Democrats’ newfound fear of the voters, he said. “If the organization couldn’t protect Martha Coakley, as deficient as she was, in Massachusetts,” despite making “a maximum effort” for her, then it couldn’t protect more vulnerable Democrats, he said.
“These Democratic officeholders are political professionals” who know how aroused the public is against their partisanship and reckless spending that is “driving jobs out of existence,” the staffer said.
High Hopes
Brian Darling, director of Senate Relations for the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, expressed optimism about people being able to work with Brown.
Although Brown isn’t a predictable conservative in a liberal state like Massachusetts, “He definitely has a more friendly feel toward him” than the liberal Coakley, Darling toldThe Wanderer.
“ I think everybody has high hopes to work with Scott Brown,” Darling said, adding that Massachusetts Citizens for Life and other prolife groups supported him.
Coakley, on the other hand, ran as a determined pro-abortionist.
Although Brown isn’t in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, he has said “he believes in some reasonable restrictions” of abortion, Darling said.
Asked if Brown could move more in the pro-life direction, Darling replied, “It’s possible.”
As for the young people evident at the March for Life, the Heritage official said, “ I’ve definitely witnessed there are a lot of young people involved in the pro-life movement.”
Asked why some people aren’t aware of the extent of youth participation, Darling said, “I think because they don’t take any time to understand the movement. I think that’s one of the problems. . . . They don’t reach out to people who are pro-life.”
Eternal Vigilance
A number of political and religious leaders spoke for about two hours from a stage on the Mall before marchers proceeded to Constitution Avenue.
Cong. Mike Pence ( R., Ind.), saying that abortion isn’t health care and abortion funding has no place in health care, drew a big cheer from the crowd when he declared it’s time to end all government funding of Planned Parenthood of America.
Another legislator warned that although a battle has been won against Obamacare, its promoters will be back later to try to ram it through again with tax-funded abortion. “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. . . . Stay awake, don’t fall asleep,” he advised the pro-lifers.
Veteran pro-life champion Cong. Chris Smith ( R., N. J.) said that Obama, “ the abortion president,” should know that pro- lifers will pray for him “even as we tenaciously fight your anti-life policies.”
Telling of a youngster who immediately recognized what’s involved when he saw a picture of an aborted baby, Smith said the child demanded, “ Mommy, who broke the baby?”
“President Obama,” Smith said, “is it really so hard to understand that abortion is violence” against babies?
Cong. Jeff Fortenberry (R., Neb.) invited Obama to join the rally next year and declare “I’ve listened to you” and become a pro-lifer.
The pastor of an African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) church told the crowd that the Obama administration could have put together a reasonable health-care plan, but people opposed the plan’s including the killing of children.
“ This administration is supporting the policies of a eugenics movement. . . . The African- American community is under attack. . . . The living God cannot tolerate it much longer,” he said.
Pointing to Planned Parenthood’s huge new abortion center in Houston, the pastor noted it is strategically located by Hispanic and black neighborhoods.
A tick “ will stay on you as long as you let that tick stay on you” to suck blood, he said, declaring, “Get him off!”
Springtime
As the march concluded in the evening shadows, a line of women who had had abortions stood in front of the Supreme Court steps to express their regret and repentance. One woman said that, in accord with her feminist beliefs, she had an abortion soon after marriage but this caused her anguish. Finally, “We came back to the Church and it was like springtime after winter.” Another woman said, “ Everything looked great on the outside” after her abortion, but “ inside I was dying.”
Listeners on the sidewalk heard of a woman’s “ downward spiral” after abortion, “years of heartache caused by my abortion,” a baby boy killed by saline abortion in 1975 whom the mother “ baptized . . . with my tears.”
Behind these women stood unflinching guards to protect the Supreme Court building, as if the court faced the kind of threat to its stones and mortar that its judicial inhabitants had imposed on the tender bodies of tens of millions of babies 37 years ago.
The living God cannot tolerate it much longer.
