Tens of thousands of pro-life activists flocked to Washington, DC this January for the annual March for Life, even though the US Supreme Court last year overturned the January 1973 decision, Roe v Wade, which had established a nationwide right to procure an abortion.
But instead of ending the march at the steps of the Supreme Court building, the march ended across the street at the US Capitol building. The change represents the changed legal landscape. Now, pro-life groups must take their arguments to the nation’s legislatures.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the case Dobbs v Jackson County did not bar abortion nationwide. Instead, it allowed the states to regulate and even ban the procedure.
Many of the speakers addressed the need to take the fight to state legislatures, and march organisers said that there were March for Life events planned in all fifty state capitals.
Rep. Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader, told the crowd, “Boy, did we get a huge victory just a few months ago when Roe was overturned, but as you all know, that's only the end of the first phase of this battle.”
“Everyone here realises that the great struggle for life isn’t over and that we still have a lot of work to do,” Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly of the Knights of Columbus told the National Catholic Register.
Another key focus this year was the need to support pregnant women. At the Vigil Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception the night before the march, Bishop Michael Burbidge, newly elected chair of the Pro-Life Activities Committee addressed the 6,000 people assembled.
“Into the empty spaces of culture, may we celebrate truth, beauty and God’s goodness,” he said.
“Into the empty space of fear and loneliness experienced by women facing an unplanned pregnancy, may we offer God’s peace and hope and our untiring commitment to walk with them at every moment.”
Mississippi attorney general Lynn Fitch, who agued the Dobbs case before the Supreme Court, said that empowering women was necessary as the struggle to end abortion moves from the courts to the culture.
“Some of the things that we’re talking about in Mississippi and promoting legislation on are workplace flexibility options, particularly for mothers,” Fitch said.
“We lose young mothers because they don’t have any options. They don’t have that flexibility. We’ve got to have childcare. It’s got to be affordable, accessible and quality.”
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