Facing frigid weather and glacial winds the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) joined well over 100,000 concerned Americans from across the country for the annual March for Life in Washington D.C. The January 22 march was particularly meaningful this year since it marked thirty years since the fateful Roe vs. Wade decision granting women the “right” to murder their preborn children.
Dozens of TFP activists handed out thousands of flyers, carrying the 18-foot standards, TFP symbols, which have been a fixture at each march since its inception in 1973. This year’s flyer, titled Defending the Church, Defending the Preborn, (click here to read Defending the Chruch, Defending the Preborn) identified the role of the Catholic Church as a monolithic force in defense of the preborn and rejected claims that the crisis surrounding the recent Church scandals, abominable as they are, destroy the Church’s credibility or right to speak on behalf of the preborn.
“This crisis does not negate the teachings of two thousand years,” reads the statement. “The sins of the Church’s human members do not sully the sanctity of the Church, Her sacraments, doctrine, or institutions.”
It decried those pressure groups attempting to use these scandals to affect “a veritable revolution” inside the Church, abolishing Her hierarchical structure and moral teachings on birth control, divorce, homosexuality and abortion.
March attendees accepted the flyer receptively. “Give me one of those flyers” said one attendee to a TFP member. “You people always have such a good presentation and demeanor at the March.”
Several anti-abortion leaders addressed the crowd, including President George W. Bush who called from St. Louis, Mo., to encourage the marchers. In his address he called partial-birth abortion an “abhorrent procedure,” and promised to sign a ban into law if it is passed by Congress.
Adding more life to the event, the TFP marching band played the Marines’ Hymn and other patriotic songs on trumpets, drums and fifes.
As always, media coverage gave disproportionate coverage to the handful of counter-protestors, downplaying the crowd estimated at more than 100,000 gathered against abortion.
“Each year I hesitate to open the paper on the morning after the march,” said long-time march attendee Greg Ferrara. “If you only read the papers you would think the pro-abortionist crowd was as big as ours.”
Gazing at the shivering ocean of marchers it was apparent that attendees did not care about what the media say and were not likely to be discouraged by them. They were gathered in defense of an ideal and firmly convinced to follow their consciences.
The finishing words of this year’s TFP message could well be applied to them. They “will weather the present storm and continue to walk firmly toward victory over abortion and all the evils that lead to it.
“‘If God be for us, who is against us?’ (Romans, 8:31)”