Commentary by Joe Schaeffer, 247 Real News
Without trying to sow dissension in the pro-life ranks, it’s a fair question to ask:
Is it possible to stage a "protest" against a grave injustice while you’re licking the hand that holds the leash tethering you to the brutality?
LifeSiteNews reported Jan. 6:
The March for Life has canceled its annual expo, where pro-life organizations from across the country exhibit and interact with pro-lifers in town for the march, “due to COVID related complications” — presumably Washington [D.C.'s] indoor venue vaccine mandate. The March also announced that anyone over age 12 attending its annual Rose Dinner must present proof of having received an abortion-tainted coronavirus injection or a proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within the past 24 hours.
The phrasing is not out of line. Here’s how the March For Life put it:“In order to attend the Rose Dinner Gala or Capitol Hill 101, those 12 years and older must provide the Renaissance DC Downtown Hotel with proof of identification and either (1) proof of receiving one COVID shot by January 15; or (2) a medical or religious exemption together with proof of a negative COVID test within the last 24 hours,” the March for Life’s website says in an update posted January 5.
You can blame this on the District of Columbia’s tyrannical coronavirus social curbs all you like. But that is to completely miss the point. This isn’t a business conference, with those attending at peril of losing their jobs if they don’t comply with the local government's authoritarian decrees. On the contrary, the annual March For Life is expressly meant to serve as a mass act of public witness against the same Culture of Death that is at the very heart of the vaccine coercion brutality.Slamming the March For Life here may appear to some as too rigid, but as a matter of pure logic, those doing so are 100 percent in the right. The jab is derived from the murder of an unborn child. This is an undisputed (although widely misrepresented) fact. If you obediently allow your "mass protest" to comply with the social behavior diktats of the Abortion Vax Regime, how can you honestly call yourself an authentic anti-abortion event? You're not doing anything.
Oh, but imagine how horrible it would be if the Rose Dinner couldn't go on.
Actual Rose Dinner photo from the March for Life website (the "Why We March" logo and script at the bottom right corner is a sad touch).
How can one March For Life without a wedge salad and a good chardonnay?
The unfortunate truth of the matter is that, as with many a hot-button issue in American public life today, abortion is a comfortable political football for careerists on both sides of the aisle. The very seriousness of it as a grave issue makes it all the easier to fund-raise off. According to documentation at the Pro Publica website, the National Right to Life Committee took in $3,773,326 in contributions in Fiscal Year 2020. NRLC spent $698,940 that year in “Executive compensation.” That figure amounts to 25 percent of the organization’s total expenses for the year. NRLC CEO David O’Steen earned $114,500 in 2020. A Chief Financial Officer made $93,000, a “Director” $92,000 and a second “Director” $82,000. Nothing mind-blowing to be sure but good work if you can get it.
Yes, it should be noted that these numbers are in line with your average nonprofit/charity salary structure. But that is the point precisely. There have been over 60 million abortions in America since 1973. The National Right to Life Committee was formally incorporated in May of that tragic year. David O’Steen may not be getting filthy rich at NRLC, but he is doing well. Leaving questions of personal motivation out of the equation, the fact remains that having abortion serve as a perpetual highly controversial issue in America for closing in on 50 years now has inevitably spawned the same kind of entrenched financial edifices one finds in any lobbying apparatus in any industry.
The great tragedy here is that the March For Life and its Rose Dinner, by all appearances, are saying to the grassroots pro-lifers that do the actual walking every frigid January that this financial apparatus cannot be sacrificed, even when the abortion jab is in the way.
A look at the Rose Dinner page at the March For Life website is disturbing if unsurprising. The same cheesy, soulless boilerplate structure ubiquitous in the fund-raising industry is employed. Sponsorship levels come at different tier levels – Featured, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze. Under the Featured Level, perks for generous donors are listed:
8 VIP Tent Tickets and access to viewing area in front of Rally Stage
60 Second Commercial on March for Life Rally jumbotron prior to concert
60 Second Commercial on March for Life route jumbotron, airing three times
3 Rose Dinner Tables of 10
16 VIP Reception Tickets
60 Second Video shown during Rose Dinner
3 Exhibitor Booths in location of choice
Social media post on all platforms
Two-Page Color Spread in Event Program (print and digital)
Recognition on MarchForLife.org with logo and link displayed
Ask yourself, is the acquisitive mindset fueling these donor tiers more likely to defiantly stand on principle and be willing to pay the price for doing so when confronted by a social evil in its path, or will it meekly acquiesce if an avenue of compromise is made available? Pro-life commenters to the LifeSiteNews article were not hesitant to express their feelings on the unseemly sight. Responses ranged from marked anger to registered disgust at palpably perceived weakness:Polly Green
The ultimate Slap in the Face, is seeing a bunch of “pro life” young people (presumed) wearing MASKS. They are vomiting [substitute more vulgar word here] on the face of God, vomiting on the unborn they claim to defend, and vomiting on those of us who have marched for LIFE since before the “March for Life” in DC ever existed. Did I chain myself to the abortion clinic doors at 15 back in the 1973 thru the 90s with people like these? No. We lacked fear, and understood the nature of WHITE MARTYRDOM.
We believed we were there as God’s representatives to actually defend what is RIGHT. They have lost that faith.
I’m deeply ashamed of them.
givelifeachance2
What a price we have paid for nigh fifty years of incrementalism. Better to call it the tiptoe for life.
Pass [Sen.] Rand Paul's [R-KY] life at conception act to celebrate created equal's 250th birthday in 2026. Now that's muscular.
eWord
The cult of Covid-19 will not be appeased by accommodation. Don’t capitulate. The March for Life organizers have made a huge mistake. You can’t play by the rules of the devil and hope to win. You lose all the time. The March is for Life, and must never be qualified by an experimental injections.
Harsh? Perhaps. Logical? Without a doubt. When a pro-life group is demanding proof of abortion-tainted medical injection for entry to its swank dinner gathering, it’s awfully hard to take the associated March Against Death it is sponsoring very seriously.Free Press International
