March for Women’s Lives

Also called the “Abortion Rights March,” or similar titles, the April 25, 2004, event name was as shown above.  That is significant as participants had varying reasons for being present.  Marching for “women’s’ lives” rather than “abortion rights” should have led to a large outpouring of support. 

Organizers, i.e. NARAL, Planned Parenthood, National Organization for Women (NOW) and others, proclaimed that there would be a crowd of more than one million people for the march.  The National Park Service no longer estimates crowd sizes.  The Washington Park Police estimated 250,000 at the rally, approximately 50,000 more than the 200,000 reported participants in the January 2004 March for Life.  Also, participation was even lower, given the fact that the number of pro-testers, reported wrongly, included several thousand pro-life advocates present to counter-protest. 

Some media outlets, e.g. New York Times and the Associated Press spoke of “tens of thousands…” being among the no more than 200,000 marchers.  Reuters reported “hundreds of thousands of protesters…” while the United Press claimed 500,000 attended the march.  All reports were of numbers just a fraction of the 1,000,000,000 organizers had predicted.

Pro-life protesters were significantly large in number that police set up barricades to separate marchers on the two sides of the issue.  Dave Andrusko of National Right to Life reported that what many march supporters and sponsors were think-ing and said would have registered 10 on a Richter scale for hysteria and vile language.  He quoted columnist Michelle Malkin: “They tried ‘to hide pro-life protest signs by covering them with their profanity-laced placards.” Andrusko also quoted columnist Kathleen Parker’s 4/28 Orlando Sentinel column in which she referred to those whose “protest signs [against President Bush and pro-lifers] were crude to pornographic.”  She also noted “profanity and obscene gesturing toward the pro-life crowd were commonplace.”  Parker did criticize displays of pictures of aborted babies.

New York’s Senator Hillary Clinton spoke at a pre-march breakfast media.  Her remarks reflected the dual march tone of pro-abortion and anti-Bush.  She said Bush’s administration was filled with people “who consider Roe v Wade the worst abomination of constitutional law in history…All the people are here today not only to march on behalf of women’s lives but to take that energy into the election in November.”  Kerry campaign workers handed out liter-ature and campaign paraphernalia.  “Celebrities” in the march were Whoopi Goldberg, Kathleen Turner, Ashley Judd, Cybil Shepherd Susan Sarandon, Allison Janney, Julianne Moore and Ted Turner, founder of CNN and former husband of Jane Fonda.  This was also the last official activity for outgoing NARAL President, Kate Michelman.

The event had sounded formidable as it was advertised.  It seemed likely to drown the positive effects of the January March for Life.  As it played out, it fell far short of its promises.  It was not even front cover news in the Democrat and Chronicle. 

Dave Andrusko; “Averting our Eyes at our Peril;” Today’s News and Views; www.nrlc.org .; Steve Ertelt; ”March for Abortion Attracts Lower Numbers than Expected;” www.LifeNews.com .; ; 4/25/04 “Pro-abortion march attracts fraction of expected marchers…;” Catholic News Agency; 4/26/05; Jennifer C. Kerr; “Some 500,000 Rally for Abortion Rights;” The Associated Press; 4/26/04; Kathryn Lopez; “March Focus on Women’s Lives Draws Hundreds of Thousands; www.nationalreview.com  .  Also read: CBS News Typifies Media Bias in Abortion March Coverage; http://www.lifenews.com/nat491.html

Updated on RARTL May  2004