What I Saw at the 2017 #MarchForLife

I thought this article was especially good. It’s from libertarian Stephanie Slade over at Reason. Libertarians are more likely to be pro-abortion than pro-life, but not exclusively so. And to have a pro-life position advocated at Reason was refreshing. 

Unlike with last weekend’s festivities, there do not appear to be any aerial photographs of the 2017 March for Life online. Nor are any mainstream media outlets reporting crowd number estimates, best I can tell.

So it’s very hard to say how many anti-abortion demonstrators came out in the nation’s capital today. I can say that from my perch atop a building overlooking Constitution Avenue, it looked like a hell of a lot. It took more than two hours for the crowd to pass me on foot as they traveled from the Washington Monument across town to the Supreme Court steps. The guy next to me on the roof shot a time-lapse video of the whole thing, if you’d like to see the mass of people for yourself:

 

Students for Life on Twitter

Wow! Check out this awesome time lapse of the entire #MarchforLife! https://t.co/Evrq3IBGCd

But what stood out more than the size were the demographic characteristics of the crowd: It was overwhelmingly young people. Sure, there were Baby Boomers, and nuns, and priests, and parents with very small children. But for every one person outside the high school/college student demographic, there seemed to be five or ten inside of it. They came to Washington by the busload to speak, listen, march, and pray.

Over 58 million abortions have been performed in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade, according to National Right to Life. The 44th anniversary of the decision, which legalized abortion nationwide, was last Sunday.

Evidence suggests libertarians are more likely to be pro-choice than pro-life. But as I’ve written, there’s nothing logically inconsistent about thinking people of all ages and stages should be protected from aggression.