March For Life Adjusts To Pandemic & Biden Administration For 2021 Edition
The coronavirus pandemic means that the 2021 edition of March for Life will be taking place as an almost entirely virtual event, but that isn’t the only thing that has changed since 2020, according to a report from CNN. The annual anti-abortion march will find a new Joe Biden administration in the White House with a focus on women’s rights, but a Supreme Court with another conservative judge in Amy Coney Barrett.
Despite the changing legal landscape in Washington D.C., organizers will continue to push for the overturning of Roe v. Wade 48 years after the 1973 Supreme Court ruling. The organization’s goal is for the march to continue until it has been struck from law.
“When we have a pro-life administration, you know, we’re marching to encourage them and show support. And when we have a pro-abortion administration, like we currently have now, it’s to let them know that we’re not going away,” said Carol Tobias, the president of the National Right to Life Committee.
Tobias will be among the small number of attendees in D.C. who will march in person.
The march typically draws around 100,00 people annually. While the coronavirus pandemic, along with added security measures following events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, has moved things mostly online, it will still draw elected officials to speak and share their anti-abortion views. Currently scheduled are Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey and Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida, who are Republicans, and Rep. Angie Hatton of Kentucky and state Sen. Mike Gabbard of Hawaii, who are Democrats. Gabbard is better known as the father of former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard.
However, it would be impossible for the March for Life to match the high-profile appearance of Donald Trump in 2020, the first time a sitting president has spoken at the rally. The marches drew many supporters of Trump from the businessman’s time in office and was even the setting of a viral moment in 2019 when a high school student in a “Make America Great Again” hat was involved in a confrontation.
With Biden now in the White House after a campaign that saw him regularly voice his support for the expansion of abortion rights, anti-abortion activists will have to take a different approach. The primary focus is on lobbying Congress to maintain current restrictions such as the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, and pushing politicians at the state level to increase restrictions on abortion access.
