March for Life shifts focus to Capitol Hill on 50th anniversary

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But following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito, the focus of the anti-abortion movement has shifted from the Supreme Court to the House and Senate, in which lawmakers are stirring with competing pro- and anti- legislation.

And in a symbolic bow to that shift, the March for Life itself is planning to detour to the U.S. Capitol, March for Life President Jeanne Mancini told Secrets.

“The route is different, although the ending is similar to what it’s been in years past,” she said in an interview.

“Instead of marching all the way up Constitution Avenue and taking the right on First Street, going past the Supreme Court, what we’re going to do is go in front of the Capitol. We’ll go up Constitution and then take a right on Third Street and take a left on Independence Avenue and then still finish at the Supreme Court,” she said, explaining that the change puts “a stronger prominence on the Capitol.”

Mancini said the change has been in the works for weeks and that the city just OK’d it.

“It may sound like a small difference, but it’s a pretty big deal,” she said. “The role of our national legislature is all the more important. And we want to let our voices be heard about the inherent dignity of the human person and their mothers, both at the Capitol and with all of our lawmakers in their offices around there and the Supreme Court,” said Mancini.

The march will also continue to focus on state legislatures and courts, where much of the abortion fight has turned to.

Some have suggested that the national march, which is one of Washington’s biggest annual events and stretches over several days of events, end since the reversal of Roe.

But Mancini and the wide collection of anti-abortion groups involved in the march from the National Mall to Capitol Hill are needed now more than ever to keep a national focus on abortion and the estimated 700,000 abortions conducted every year.

Throw in the Biden administration’s efforts to promote abortion and fund Planned Parenthood and this week’s decision by the Food and Drug Administration to ease the access to abortion pills, and Mancini said that the march would go on indefinitely.

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Patrick Kelly, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, said, “The end of Roe is a crucial milestone, but we should not mistake the ruling as the end of abortion. The fight to protect life will now evolve at the state level, but a united stand before national lawmakers is still essential.”

Mancini said, “Over the past 50 years, we’ve become the world’s largest and longest-running human rights demonstration. … You don’t take sort of the largest-running human rights demonstration and just shut that down when the job hasn’t been completed.”

When will that be? “I anticipate that we will march until abortion is unthinkable,” she said, adding, “It took us 50 years to get Roe overturned. I think it’ll take us a little bit longer in this next phase, but the next phase is marching until abortion is unthinkable.”