The March for Women’s Lives is a yearly (usually) pro-choice demonstration held in Washington D.C. Here are some accounts of the 2006 March from pro-life counter-protestors and observers.
One pro-choicer, whose photo-essay can be found in the INDC Journal, did not skimp on his criticism of pro-lifers.
However, he was forced to admit:
“The speeches contained the typical hyperbolic rhetoric, marshalling this crowd of hundreds of thousands….One harangue in particular caught my attention, delivered by a fiery, square-built woman with close-cropped blonde hair. It was a screaming, apoplectic treatise on the virtues of “cunt power,” that demanded that the nation bow to the authority of the “cunt” and pledge allegiance to the the United “Cunts” of America. “My Cunt ‘Tis of Thee,” etc., etc….At this point, I became a bit disturbed, for the crowd wasn’t awkwardly tolerating this obscene and immature rant, rather raising their arms and screaming throaty acceptance of a woman performing second rate porno-schlock, ostensibly as a legitimate representative of one side of a highly divisive and important public issue. I consider myself pro-choice, but this wasn’t my crowd, and these orators didn’t speak for me.”(2)
He then goes on to discuss how the crowd reacted to a line of Episcopal priests standing with the pro-life counter-demonstrators. The priests were standing quietly.
“For the most part, the priests prayed or calmly attempted to speak to protesters that drew near enough to engage them. I had little idea how badly many in the crowd would react to the mere sight of the religious garb. Mere seconds passed before I witnessed the first bout of rage. Thousands upon thousands of people walked by, and I would say that perhaps a fifth of the individuals within sight and shouting distance had a highly aggressive reaction to the presence the priests. They yelled, spit and uttered shocking profanities. A smattering of the worst:
“F-ck you!”
“Die, you f–king murderers!”
“Why don’t you go screw some kids!”
“How many little boys did you f-ck in the ass today?”
“You just want more wayward children around so you can f-ck them!”
“Shouldn’t you be off molesting altar boys?”
“You want to kill women? F-ck you!”
It was simply stunning. The second these people…saw the priests, they simply lost their minds. It was like watching a live-action scene from the Exorcist repeated ad infinitum. No exaggeration, no joke.
This was a fine example of hateful mob mentality. The belligerents that screamed the most vile profanities were egged on by the people that they were with, which made for a nice collusion of nasty emotions: violent anger and malicious, hysterical laughter…”(3)
The post showed a number of pictures of pro-choicers hurling abuse at the priests.
At one point a red liquid was thrown, splattering both the priests and a nearby cop.(4)
Accounts from pro-lifers who were there are similar.
Pro-Lifer John Lomperis says this of the speakers:
“They … resorted to name-calling, denouncing pro-life people as ‘cowards’, ‘peckerwood anti-choice fanatics’ and people ‘who have no shame’ among many other epithets.”(5)
He also makes mention of the reaction of the pro-choice crowd to the pro-life presence at the March.
“During the course of the march, hundreds of peaceful pro-life counter-protesters endured a steady stream of hurled curses, hateful shouts, and even an occasional projectile (including black ink, spit, Planned Parenthood condoms with crude jokes on them, an egg, and a flier picturing Jesus and reading: “Save Lives / Abort Christ” The main pro-life groups represented were American Collegians for Life; Silent No More (a Christian ministry of and for post-abortive women); Feminists for Life; an African-American evangelical group called the Life, Education and Resource Network (LEARN), and Operation Witness. The pro-choice marchers reserved some of their most energetic shouts and confrontations for the Silent No More women quietly holding signs that said, simply, “I Regret My Abortion.”(6)
Karen A. Torres was at the March with her two daughters, attending with the counter-demonstrations. She witnessed a priest mobbed by pro-choice demonstrators.
Torres said the crowd in the street “went crazy” at the sight of a crucifix and roman collar, coupled with the recitation of the rosary. “It was too much for them,” she said. “Women naked from the waist up (except for NARAL stickers) came as close as possible to the priest to scream obscenities and block sight of the crucifix with their signs promoting sex-ed….One enraged man began banging his sign hard against an oversized poster of a baby in the womb, attempting to topple it and possibly its holder.
One man who appeared to be quite serious told us repeatedly that he worshipped Satan and was putting a curse on us. Over and over again we were told that Jesus hated us, God was pro-choice and we were bad Christians who were going to hell.
But the most hated and attacked target was the priest. For major portions of the march, we could not hear the rosary over the microphone, even though we were only five feet away. At the sight of the priest and his crucifix, people cursed, taunted and chanted slogans, but mostly they just screamed and shrieked incoherently. Between the decibel level and the hate, that sustained screaming was unnervingly like a tidal wave coming at you.”
Torres said that the priest never lost his temper. She said he exhibited “patient compassion” in the face of “unremitting hate.”
“In my 47 years I have never witnessed a better example of grace under pressure (better known as courage) and I would like to write and tell him so.”(7)
A pro-life demonstrator named Dr. Messe gave the following account of the March:
“To get into our position on 7th St, we had to cross through the Mall, right through the pro-abortion crowd. I was naive coming down to Washington, I did not think they would have that many. But they did have a large crowd. Our group of one hundred or so walked silently, single file. The barrage of insults and screaming in our faces was hard to take….
A group of one hundred young pro-abortion supporters decided to leave the rally on the Mall and march in front of us and scream…They played drums and chanted in our face. They were heavily tattooed and dressed in scanty black clothing. They rubbed their genitals and made pelvic gestures upon each other. ‘Masturbation, Procreation’, they shouted over and over again. The police held them back and after twenty minutes finally made them continue down the street.
When the marchers came by, we were assailed by the usual comments, to which our group did not respond. They said:
If men could get an abortion, it would be a sacrament!
Shove that crucifix up your A__!
Jesus was Pro-choice!
How many babies have you adopted?
F – – – You – while they pointed the middle finger at the crucifix.”(8)
Many of the pro-life counter-demonstrators had no connection with organized religion. However, they fared no better. A group of women held up “I Regret My Abortion” signs. One discusses her experience:
“The March, in three words: “viciously, mercilessly abusive.” The amount of verbal aggression and abuse hurled at me personally, by women and men, of all ages, for carrying the I REGRET MY ABORTION sign, well, I thought that I was ready for it.
I wasn’t. Not even close.
I consider myself fairly far along on the “healing” and “public-appearances” scales. We stood, all 500 of us in the Silent No More Awareness groups, in total silence as planned, for over five hours, not replying or saying one word to anything that was said or done to us, and I do mean anything.
But nothing prepared me for literally mobs of livid people screaming the most hateful vicious snide things at me personally. We were spit on, and had an egg hurled at us from the marchers. There were two groups of Satanists. And the signs. Like the guy who held a handmade sign, “BABY KILLER” with an arrow pointed downward at himself. If not for the riot police, we would have been mobbed. There was that much viciousness. People broke through the riot police’s invisible line just to come up in my face and hurl insulting words. There were not enough police to form a complete line, so they would run up to me, shout out their abuse, and run back before the policeman or woman got to stop him/her. And I said nothing to anyone, just held my sign.”(9)
She goes on to tell more about the counter-protest.
“The riot police, perhaps fifty in our area, in full battle gear, lined up on the march-side of the barricades, facing us, about 10-15 feet apart. Before the march, I said to the few of them standing right in front of me, “Thank you for being here. I know it’s your job so you have to be here, but thank you anyway. You won’t be getting any trouble from us.” One of the policemen nodded his head respectfully at me in silent acknowledgment and thanks….
I saw men look me right in the eye after reading the sign as they shouted out the chants that are the 30-year-old standards of the pro-abortion movement, like “Pro-Life? That’s a lie! YOU don’t care if women die” …Little did they know, how much we do care and do help women to survive and have a better alternative to abortion.
Later, after reading my sign, one woman started a chant that about a hundred marchers began screaming at me, “THAT WAS YOUR *CHOICE*!” essentially telling me I had no right to be upset or to regret. They stopped marching and stood right in front of me, all one-hundred of them glaring directly at me, some not more than 2-3 feet away, jabbing fingers at me in the air, their faces twisted and contorted with contempt. I just looked from face to face, amazed at what I was seeing. It was starting to get frightening. Not for my personal safety, but their hatred was feeling as though it was reaching a fever pitch and becoming toxic.
Can any of you pro-choicers stop for just a moment, and imagine nothing but a flimsy piece of fence standing between you and 100 frenzied people, not safely away on some wired blog, but there live and in person, who are screaming their disgust and hatred for you?…
I said [to the other pro-lifers] “It always turns out that the ones who are the most upset at us, the angriest ones, the ones who are so hateful, have so much to cover up, and this is how they do it. They are the post-abortive ones, even if they don’t say so. And they’re the ones who hit the wall the hardest when they do. I know, because I denied it for over 20 years…I know what happens when it all comes out.”
Overwhelmed by emotion, she began to cry:
“You know how it all rushes through you at once when you start weeping? Everything comes out. I cried because, here were these thousands of people fighting for a right I wish they’d never allowed me to have, instead of fighting for the daughters and sons I and millions of others will never have. I felt they were fighting for the death of my daughter, to deny me the right to grieve her…
Then I realized I wasn’t crying so much for me as I was for them. I felt they were fighting to hide their loss because to come to grips with it, after being so fervently pro-choice, would bring upon them the same kind of abuse I was getting. I felt so crushingly sad for them. The cold, angry hearts, the screaming remorselessness, the relentless cruelty they seemed capable of, toward me and toward another living human being, their own flesh and blood. I realized that they don’t see those living human beings as the gift they are, because if they did, the facade could no longer justify their ‘choice.’ Just as it one day stopped hiding the truth of my choice. I just wanted to reach out and hold them all…”
The pro-life counter-protesters seemed to feel that if they had only reached one person, it was worth it. Perhaps despite the anger evident in the pro-choicers, some seeds were planted that day.
Here are some photos of the event.
Footnotes
1. Jo Freeman http://www.jofreeman.com/photos/MFWL.html#photos
2. “Bill” INDC Protests March for Women’s Lives Part 2. May3, 2004. http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000361.php
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. John Lomperis “Oldline Churches Participate in Abortion March” May 20, 2004.
6. Ibid.
7. Michael F. Flach. “Editor’s Deck: Descent into Hell” Catholic Herald 5/13/04
8. Blog “After Abortion” http://afterabortion.blogspot.com/2004_04_25_afterabortion_archive.html#108304137944458162
9. Ibid.
10.Ibid.
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