As Roe v. Wade turned 34 last weekend, pro-life activists flocked to the District of Columbia and to Georgetown to protest the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in the United States.
Advocates from across the country condemned legalized abortion at the Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life at Georgetown on Sunday and at the annual March for Life on the Capitol on Monday.
The conference, named for the late Catholic Archbishop and prominent pro-life advocate, raised over $1,800 for a crisis pregnancy center and was attended by over 600 high school and college students, director Bridget Bowes (COL ‘07) said.
Helen Alvaré, a law professor at Columbia University and a keynote speaker at the conference, said that abortion rights advocates often unfairly claim the intellectual high ground and that the pro-choice movement is falsely portrayed as rational, supportive of the poor, and representative of women.
“On the surface, of course, their message is that having children slows you down,” she said. “Their underlying message, though, is that being the fertile half of the human race is a curse.”
During the conference, members of Hyas for Choice set up a table in Red Square, where they handed out flyers, brochures and buttons to passersby.
Among them was Rebecca Greene (COL ‘07), who believes that Alvaré’s characterization of pro-choice advocates was ridiculous.
“We would never try to tell a woman to have an abortion,” Greene said. “When they try to frame us as pro-abortion, it makes us want to scream.”
According to Lily Nathan (COL ‘08), the pro-choice movement promotes life in all stages, which requires access to safe abortions for those who need them.
Carl Anderson, the conference’s other keynote speaker and Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, said that Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional. The decision was founded on a number of half-truths and ignored significant evidence, according to Anderson, and the Supreme Court chose to avoid deciding when life begins by choosing a case that did not include a large amount of medical evidence. Comparing legal abortion to Nazi practices, he said that it leads to the treatment of humans as property.
“We cannot really judge the value of a human being, and when we try to do that, we demean ourselves as human beings,” he said.
Many of the conference’s attendees as well as several Georgetown students participated in the March for Life on Monday. Jennifer Keuler (SFS ’09), Vice-President of GU Right to Life, said that it is very hard to be pro-life as a college student.
“We get shushed a lot on campus,” she said before heading off to the march. “Why are we crazy and Hyas for Choice is not?”
At the rally, thousands of activists marching from the National Mall to the Supreme Court turned the frozen ground to slush beneath them. Some other activists, like Lydia Cubbedge of Arlington, shared Keuler’s sentiments, saying that it’s hard to be pro-life today.
“In the D.C. area especially it’s difficult,” she said. “Especially if you’re a woman and you’re pro-life.”
But Mary Stephen from Beloit, Wis., who describes herself as very active in the pro-life movement, said the movement is growing and attracting a large numbers of younger activists.
“The young people, this is their issue and they’re going to rock with it,” she said.
