The March for Life began as a small demonstration in Washington DC and rapidly grew to be the largest pro-life event in the world. The peaceful demonstration has taken place every year since the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade in 1973 as a witness to the greatest human rights violation of our time, abortion. This year’s event was held on January 22nd and was attended by over 500,000 people in the pro-life community, including nine OP students.

Prior to the march we, along with 30,000 others, attended a youth rally and Mass at the Verizon Center. The atmosphere of thousands of young people from around the world standing up for the unborn was truly breathtaking. The Mass was administered by Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington DC, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York City and many more bishops and priests from around the world.

Oratory’s students, accompanied by Mr. Gordon and Mr. Cranley, began our march at the Verizon Center and walked 1.2 miles to the United States Capitol. At the National Mall, politicians (mainly Republicans) and many pro-life leaders made speeches regarding personal experience and anti-abortion legislation on in Congress. Interestingly, that very day Congress passed a bill that would ban federal funding for abortion.

As the seemingly endless wave of people marched down the streets of Washington DC, I could not help but notice something was missing: the media. Almost every major media outlet in the country has neglected to cover the March for Life. Regardless of media attention, however, the pro-life community will not cease to continue spreading its message.

Perhaps the most important experience for us was when an angry feminist verbally abused our group. This opened our eyes to the truth behind the fight between pro-life and pro-choice. It is a debate that will continue forever, mainly because compromise is very difficult to achieve regarding abortion.

Forty-two years after Roe v. Wade, we have lost more than 56 million innocents to the horrors of abortion. There is much work to be done in order to ensure that the unborn will be able to see the light of day.