The 2025 March for Life in Washington, D.C.

Traveling Back to the 1970s

As I wrote previously:

As I wrote previously:I graduated from grade school in 1973, coinciding with the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which was to unleash unrestrained abortion across the United States.  While I knew that abortion was horrific, I did not fully understand the significance of that decision; abortion was already legal in my native New York, lauded by some on talk shows, and overlooked in many pulpits.... 

Following the example of a high school buddy, I would sometimes participate in a pro-life witness outside a local abortuary. Being actively against abortion did not seem to be a popular position among adult staff at our Catholic high school. (In fact, it was even worse at my Catholic college.) When a local pro-life leader came to speak at our high school, I recall him being treated rudely. 

In 1976, James Buckley was trying to maintain his U.S. Senate seat against a challenge by Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan.  While both were practicing Catholics, only Buckley was identifiably pro-life.  One of the religious brothers from our school told my buddy that he was voting for Moynihan because Moynihan’s positions were supposedly better for economically impoverished people.  Somehow, I do not recall the brother’s “calculus” ever being explained. 

Is it any wonder that Catholic lay people did not take the horrendous crime against humanity, abortion, with sufficient seriousness when Catholic leaders had dismissive attitudes about abortion?.... 

Catholics desperately needed the guidance of their clergy in the post Roe v Wade years.  Yet in the ten years after Vatican II (1965–1975), ten thousand men across the world left the Catholic priesthood, allegedly because of mandatory celibacy – to which they had committed themselves at ordination....

In 1977, I attended my first March for Life in Washington, DC. As I was leaving the mall that day, I recall thinking that it would likely not be long until pro-life Americans gave up on abortion. Thank God I was wrong! (Catholic Stand, 6/8/22)

Present Day

My wife and I traveled to and from this year's March for Life aboard a bus sponsored by two parishes from the Trenton, NJ Diocese.  Though the Roe v Wade decision was overturned in 2022, we still have an incredible road ahead in convincing our fellow Americans of the sanctity of all human life and the sanctity of marriage/family/human sexuality:

Every day, thousands of abortions are still taking place across the country; innocent human beings are being killed. This means that marches, walks, and rallies for life are as urgent as they ever were. They prompt us to more actively work toward a greater respect for the sacredness of human life from fertilization to natural death, as well as to pursue ways to protect human life in law, especially the preborn. And that means showing up, rain or shine, snow, sleet or hail or when threatened with persecution. That means educating ourselves, encouraging one another, and strategizing about how we can make a greater difference. (Father Shenan Bouquet, 1/22/25)