Tomorrow, Thursday, January 21 through Saturday, January 23 I have the opportunity to travel to Washington D.C. for the annual March for Life which is a pro-life rally and peaceful protest occurring each year to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Year after year, it is consistently one of the largest rallies in the United States and it’s only getting bigger. In 2003, the event drew 250,000 people to the capitol. By 2011, the number was up to 400,000 and in 2013 the number was 650,000. Interestingly, the turnout is not by a bunch of old religious fuddy duddies. In 2010, the Washington Post estimated that more than half of the marchers were under the age of 30, and that number continues to grow.
But this post isn’t about abortion.
My question is this: In two days, there will be over 650,000 young people marching on our nation’s capitol, shutting down streets, holding banners, and taking part in this pro-life, pro-women display and the national news media will be almost silent about it….why is that?
Why did the riots in Ferguson captivate hours of air time on nearly every news channel, despite being much smaller than the March for Life? Why did the Eric Garner protests likewise receive live coverage and interviews? In 2014, ABC and NBC gave the March for Life a combined 46 seconds of air time, donating nearly 5 times that much to BaoBao, a new panda cub at the National Zoo. CBS didn’t even mention the March. The year before, networks gave 521 times more coverage to Manti Te’o and his fictional girlfriend than they gave to a rally that effectively shuts down Capitol Hill. Whatever your stance on abortion, certainly we can agree that the issue is more important that the birth of a baby panda or some football player’s love life!
And even when we do gain some attention, we are labeled as merely “antiabortion activistsâ€, clearly intending to cast a negative light on our position.
Watch the news this week and you’ll probably be able to count the embarrassingly low number of seconds of air time this important event receives on the news. But enjoy your 10 minutes of the Donald.
