On this 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 36th annual March for
Life in Washington was expecting over 200,000 people this year,
estimating that the majority of them are young people, students, young
adults, and even children with their parents. There are bunches of
organizations that show up from across the country and even coming in
from other countries to learn from this organized demonstration and
take the idea back to their home countries. When I was hosting ‘The
Right Questions’ a few years ago, I devoted the whole show that day to
a revolving door of participants live from the March on cell phones,
and I talked with some from South America and Europe. They are lively
and energized and determined, this mass rally, upbeat and positive and
hopeful in spite of the spread of abortion and euthanasia.

Why? Because a) in spite of appearances to the contrary (abortion
movement victories over the past year under the Obama administration),
they believe they are winning, especially as the newest polls show a
majority of Americans now consider themselves pro-life. And b) they
know they’re right. All euphemistic rhetoric and legal sleight of hand
aside, the truth is that human life begins at conception, and that individual is a whole, separate, unique, living human being.
And once you remove their right to life - legally deeming this whole
class of human beings as ‘unworthy’ of constitutional protection at
someone else’s discretion - no other rights matter. The civil rights
movement taught us that. You don’t get more fundamental than that.

And so today, great numbers of pro-life people are amassed in
Washington to witness their dedication to a very American right to life
guaranteed in the Constitution (and abrogated by an activist Supreme
Court, most notably Justice Harry Blackmun). People of all faiths are
coalesced around this cause, and some people of no particular faith.
The Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League is there each year, and their website explains why: “…because life is
all there is and all that matters, and abortion destroys the life of an
innocent human being.”

Atheists and agnostics know this, and intellectual honesty must admit it.

Fortunately, we’re seeing more and more intellectual honesty these
days emerging out of the ‘pro-choice’ world. Like the recent news that a Planned Parenthood executive director quit her job and joined the pro-life cause after witnessing an abortion being
performed through ultrasound. And the even more recent news that a Planned Parenthood director in Alberta challenged PP’s claim of giving women a choice or even information to make more than one, like information on natural family planning.

And here’s my personal favorite, the intellectually honest call to apply critical thinking skills to how we talk and think about abortion.

“A lot of people might look at me and say that I had a “better
outcome” because of my abortion, as the original article implied is the
result when a woman who chose abortion later finishes school or has a
better financial status than a young mother. But I would gladly give
every title, every possession, and every penny to my name in return for
the opportunity to once again be that terrified 17-year-old on that
cold exam table, sobbing, waiting for the doctor to come in, and to
choose what I knew in my heart was really the right thing to do.”