March for Life, Part II

I decided to go to the March for Life today, even if it did just mean walking around the Mall for 20 minutes on my lunch break, even if my presence makes no difference in the fact that this country will support abortion more tomorrow than it did yesterday. It was inspiring - more so than I expected - to see hundreds, possibly thousands (this was before the actual March arrived) of people of all different ages and ethnicities, who actually believe that human life is worth protecting. As much time as I spend on the internet reading pro-life blogs, when you're from a blue state and live in the bluest of blue cities, your friends are all pro-choice, your family's mostly pro-choice and the rest apathetic, it's hard to conceptualize that the pro-life movement is this big and this real. All those pro-life writers, all those pro-life voters - they're real people! Flesh and blood people who care passionately about innocent lives. I've heard people say that the March for Life is more about solidarity than change, and that always made it seem inane. Of course the March has to go on - in many ways it's the only visibility the pro-life movement gets - but if you're only going to make yourself feel good about the existence of others like you, there's almost no point. I still feel like that, to a degree, but now I understand the point of solidarity, how important it is to not just know but to experience the fact that there are more pro-life people in this world than just me, my Aunt Sue, and that kid Jake from work. I understand action, though, too. I heard a few congressmen (I think) speak, and I'll have to look up who was who and who said what, but the one saying "We're winning this because of people like you" didn't speak to me. We may win the war - I have to believe, no matter how unlikely it seems, that we'll win the war - but, just as Obama is poised, pen over paper, to overturn the Mexico City Policy, so are we poised to lose a lot of battles in the coming years. The speaker who inspired me was the one talking about action - about letters to the editor, meetings with your congressmen, asking how they intend to vote before they do so, because complaining after the fact does no one any good. As I'm sure you can tell from this morning's post, I didn't expect the March for Life to make me feel good, to give me hope in humanity and the legislative process, to reinforce the belief that this is something worth fighting for. I was wrong.