If only the organizers had changed their rally to “The March for Black Lives Matter," they might not have had such concerns. They might have been welcomed by the press mob, and by violent AntiFa, and by politicians who demonize right-leaning rallies even as they praise leftist “protests” that leave numerous cities blazing and many people harmed or killed.
Sadly, the organizers of the annual March for Life, in Washington, D.C., haven’t gotten on the “identity politics” bandwagon, and so they -- who actually do support the equal sanctity of all life -- have been driven to make a hard decision.
As John-Henry Weston reports for LifeSiteNews, the organizers have decided to cancel their January 22 march.
The March for Life put out a public statement saying ‘The protection of all of those who participate in the annual March, as well as the many law enforcement personnel and others who work tirelessly each year to ensure a safe and peaceful event, is a top priority of the March for Life.’
Which pretty much says it all about the upside-down, collectivism-pushing, anti-human atmosphere of predation-through-politics-and-press that has been birthed in America over the last century.
If a rally organized and attended each year to celebrate life itself can be threatened, or its supporters depicted as “violent extremists” such that they feel it best to cancel the event, there’s a titanic problem in the pop-press and the legal institutions that are supposedly created to “prevent or punish” violence. In fact, one might want to ask if the legal institutions themselves engage in violence and the demonization of those who promote peace.
Weston continues:
Shocking news, and unprecedented since Roe v. Wade imposed abortion on all of America in 1973: the 2021 in-person March for Life has been cancelled for all but a ‘small group of pro-life leaders,’ with the hundreds of thousands of Americans who usually attend the pro-life event are encouraged by March for Life President Jeanne Mancini to ‘stay home and to join the March virtually.’
And that is a statement which, upon deep reflection, adds sadness to the story itself.
It is easy to nitpick, but in Mancini’s statement one can see a “positive spin” that’s not quite appropriate. A “virtual” march, is not a march. It’s a Zoom meeting, a visual phone call. It’s not a rally attended in person by hundreds of thousands of kindred spirits who are meeting, shaking hands, hugging, enjoying the camaraderie, and making a physical point. As nice as it might be to connect through phone or modem, and as easy as that is, the very act of traveling to meet requires a sacrifice and opens doors to experience and kinship of a different form. The two kinds of gathering are not mutually exclusive, but to call online chat a “virtual march” is to put too pretty a face on the disappointment of losing the real march.
Adds Weston:
MFL president Jeanne Mancini continued saying ‘In light of the fact that we are in the midst of a pandemic which may be peaking, and in view of the heightened pressures that law enforcement officers and others are currently facing in and around the Capitol, this year’s March for Life will look different.’
Which is understandable, to an extent. But even as one experiences disappointment over the cancellation, and imagines the even greater disappointment and frustration of the organizers, one can remember that the case and fatality rates for COVID19 are not supported by any reliable numbers and are, in fact, inflated by both the unreliable PCR testand by federal subsidies offered to medical centers that list deaths “with” COVID19 as deaths “from” COVID19.
Likewise, we can note a more fundamental precept, which concerns free will and life.
Attendance to any gathering during the “COVID19 crisis” is voluntary, as is association with anyone in a person-to-person arrangement or planned event. As a result, each of us is supposed to be able to employ his or her God-given free will to control one’s own life. If one wants to take a risk (in this case, a propaganda-fed, artificially overblown risk) with his or her life, one is supposed to be able to do so. By joining others in a rally to support life, one is not attacking another person, which is precisely what happens in the act of abortion -- abortion that many DC politicians work to fund through taxation.
It’s possible that the organizers were gun-shy, in part, due to worries that leftist media might attempt to call the march a “super-spreader” event. But, again, this gives pro-life people the opportunity to speak up for truth. This hands us a chance to amplify truthful messages about the inflated pandemic numbers, government manipulation and lockdowns, voluntary association, free will, and life being sovereign, by its nature.
Yes, one can understand the pressures driving MFL organizers to make their decision, but in 2021 America, those pressures are, themselves, issues that have to be exposed and fought.