Member Perspective: Why I Marched
By Grace Aldershof
While the American Solidarity Party had marchers at pro-life rallies from coast to coast, no march was more controversial than the March for Life in Washington D.C. For the first time in the 47 year history of the world’s largest pro-life event, a sitting president addressed the crowd in person. Unfortunately, the president was Donald Trump. Measured against our values, this president is a real dud. Several friends and acquaintances seemed horror struck by my choice to attend the March for Life this year, since they viewed it as a part of Trump’s reelection campaign or as a Republican rally. Why would I, a Solidarist, carry my small children through a noisy crowd of Trump supporters in the middle of January? Let me explain.
The short answer is that I marched for the same reason I have marched for many years: to demand that our country outlaw the slaughter of preborn children. But this year, I’ll admit that I had to consider the message I would be sending. I would never want to bolster a president who has goaded our international enemies, enabled those who wish to ravage our environment, set himself as an enemy of social justice and, frankly, has not been a consistent ally of the unborn. Ultimately, though those are great reasons not to attend a Trump rally, they are not great reasons to skip the March for Life.
The March for Life mission statement speaks of “uniting, educating, and mobilizing pro-life people in the public square.” On the whole, the March has been successful in uniting the cause. I saw bishops marching alongside atheists, right-wingers shoulder to shoulder with left-wingers, and personalities who would mix like gasoline and a match under normal circumstances unite to protect the rights of the unborn. Speakers have included Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians, as well as folks who defy categorization. Looking at our group, as well as our friends from Rehumanize International and Consistent Life Network with whom we rallied, nobody would assume we were Trump voters. In fact, we carried signs advocating for someone else to be President. But when we marched together, we gave people an image of the breadth of people who want to end abortion and the unstoppable force which we can be when we mobilize for the preborn.
Moreover, I march to show I am unwilling to cede the pro-life movement to the Republican Party. I advocate for letting the light of a whole life ethic into every sector of society. Many of us have been avidly following the Democratic primary, gauging Brian Carroll’s competition for the presidency, and there we see the effects of giving up on a group of people. When we had people like Denis Kucinich in Congress, I might have been comfortable being a Democrat, and even the pro-abortion Democrats were comfortable nuancing their views. Now it would be radical for a Democrat to support any restriction on abortion at any point in pregnancy. Both Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigeig have been asked if the party ought to be open to pro-lifers and have used a few sentences to essentially say ‘no’. This is the fruit of abandoning the Democrats to the abortion lobby. And, of course, if it is only the Republican party that even gives lip service to the cause, it doesn’t have to have good leaders to earn the pro-life vote. No, I won’t be pressured by Democrats to vote for whomever they nominate in order to stop Trump and promote ecological and social justice; nor will I be pressured by Republicans to abandon my values to end abortion.
So when we unseat President Trump, I’ll be pleased as punch to scream my head off in the front row in support of President Carroll. But even if we don’t, I’ll be there next year and the following until the day that abortion is illegal in every corner of the United States of America.
