The biggest difference between the March for Life and the Women’s March wasn’t the size. It was the tone.
Less than a week after Madonna threatened to bomb the White House and told the leader of the free world to fuck himself, Vice President Mike Pence called on the thousands of abortion protestors gathered in Washington, D.C. to embrace “compassion, not confrontation.”
It would seem that the vice president borrowed from Hillary Clinton while drafting his remarks. In a word, Pence reminded the March for Life rally that when their opponents go low, they must go high.
“I believe that we will continue to win the hearts and minds of the rising generation if our hearts first break for young mothers and their unborn children,” Pence told the marchers, “and if we each of us do all we can to meet them where they are, with generosity, not judgment.”
Even as Republicans prepare to make the most comprehensive anti-abortion reforms since Roe, the eloquent vice president insisted that real change occurs outside Congress.
“Life is winning through the quiet counsels between mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters, between friends across kitchen tables, and over coffee at college campuses,” he said. “The truth is being told. Compassion is overcoming convenience. And hope is defeating despair.”
While that compassionate conservatism hasn’t been vogue in Washington for the last eight years, it’s been a staple of the March for Life’s message. More than numbers, that tone will carry the debate. And in the end, it’s the only comparison that matters between the two demonstrations.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
