The March for Life last year boasted more than 100,000 attendees, a record number for the largest annual anti-abortion demonstration. Then-President Donald Trump spoke before a massive crowd on the National Mall and declared the event a “very special moment.”
The protest was one of the last massive gatherings to occur in Washington, D.C., before the coronavirus hit the United States, and many advocates argued at the time that it was a turning point for a movement that for more than 50 years has sought to overturn the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.
But the pandemic, coupled with a dramatic loss both at the presidential level and in the Senate, set up new obstacles to the movement’s efforts to restrict abortion access nationwide. And, after the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill, leaders at the March for Life, which organizes the protest, announced that the event would be moved online.
Still, about 300 demonstrators on Friday marched outside the Capitol Hill fence before laying roses behind the Supreme Court. Some carried signs protesting President Biden’s signature on Thursday revoking the so-called Mexico City Policy, which bans federal funding for international abortions. Others expressed greater fears that the Biden presidency will deal a series of blows to the movement.
One man from Philadelphia flew an upside-down American flag. He told the Washington Examiner that Biden’s policies on abortion are “bad for America.”
“That’s why my flag is upside down,” he said. “The nation is in distress — and he is an attack on life. His executive orders, they are bad for the country.”
Another marcher, as the group passed St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, where Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas often attends Mass, shouted in the direction of the church, “Deny Biden Communion!”
The Archdiocese of Washington stated after Biden’s win that it would not deny him communion, even though the president supports the decision in Roe, which is contrary to church teaching on abortion. The move prompted outrage among many critics of Biden, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.
The duality of Biden’s faith and his support for abortion was a point on which the Trump campaign repeatedly hammered Biden during the 2020 campaign. One of Trump’s most prominent anti-abortion surrogates, Fr. Frank Pavone, national director for Priests for Life, told the Washington Examiner that the wins Trump got for the movement during his presidency will ensure a lasting relationship between the former president and anti-abortion advocates.
Pavone predicted that Trump will be essential in 2022 for both the movement and the Republican Party at large.
“His base has not gone away,” Pavone said. “I don’t think it’s going to go away or weaken at all. He’s the best champion we’ve had in a long time.”
But without the White House, many movement leaders recognize that the best shot they have at victories against abortion will be at the state level and in the courts.
Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, told the Washington Examiner that, after Trump, the movement will seek to capitalize on his judicial appointments, especially the three conservative judges the administration placed on the Supreme Court. At the same time, Mancini said, the movement will aggressively fight to keep the Hyde Amendment, a congressional provision that bars federal funding for abortions, in place.
“Most of our activity will be defending the good strides that we made,” she said.
With the ascent of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which gave the Supreme Court a 6-3 conservative majority, many anti-abortion leaders say they sense an end to Roe. They’re not the only ones. Over the past few years, in many states, legislatures have been passing laws either restricting abortion almost completely or actively codifying it in their constitutions.
New York, Maine, Vermont, Illinois, and Rhode Island in 2019 consolidated abortion protections and expanded access. Virginia did the same last year, after a dramatic failure to do so in 2019. On the other side, Missouri, Alabama, and Tennessee doubled up on the victory with stringent restrictions on abortion.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, told the Washington Examiner that state battles will be the key for the anti-abortion hopes in the next few years. That, she said, along with holding the line on previous congressional wins — the group dumped several hundred thousand dollars into a bid to keep West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin in support of the filibuster — will keep some of the more substantial victories of the Trump era intact.
“We’re making sure we can do everything we can to make sure that dam doesn’t break,” she said. “Because, if it does, then the gains that we built over the past four years and before begin to go away.”
But Dannenfelser said she has great hope for the future of the movement. Pointing out the pandemic-restricted crowd in front of the Supreme Court, she said that although their numbers are small, nationally, the movement is doing well.
“The irony is that we’re the strongest that we’ve ever been,” Dannenfelser said.
