The Women’s March is objecting to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh because his confirmation to the court will make women “die.” The problem is, they already are dying.
The Women’s March proudly took credit for more than 30 protesters arrested during federal judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing September 4. That’s not surprising – ever since July, when President Trump announced his nomination, media figures have panicked that Kavanaugh would enable the court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion federally. If that happened, abortion would be left up to the states, or, as some in the media insisted, outlawed entirely. And if that happened, women would die.
They’re right on one point: abortion is paired with death – just not in the way feminists in the media assume.
Those 30 arrests stood for, among other things, women’s lives, according to the Women’s March. And that was just the tip of the iceberg: the group boasted “hundreds of women prepared to get arrested.”
These protesters are traveling from across the country, funded by donations to the Women’s March. So far, the organization raised more than $100,000 with a crowd-funding campaign that hyped threats against “women’s rights.”
“Whether we have ever or will ever be pregnant, our right as women to decide what happens to our bodies is one we MUST protect. We refuse to play by the rules when our lives are on the line,” the campaign stressed. “If Senators vote to gut Roe, criminalize abortion, and punish women for making choices about our own bodies, they leave us with no other choice than to disobey.”
In an additional statement reported by outlets from The New York Times to CNN, Rachel O’Leary Carmona, Women’s March chief operating officer, repeated that sentiment.
“Women are disrupting this hearing today because our lives are at risk,” she said. “Women will die if Kavanaugh is confirmed.”
But women are already dying – and that’s the whole reason why this is an issue right here, right now.
As CatholicVote reported previously, one million babies are aborted each year, with 60 million total in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade, according to pro-life leaders. CDC numbers on abortion, which only come from states willing to participate, show that roughly 22 million U.S. women are missing today because of abortion, according to Media Research Center calculations.
To put that in perspective, that’s twice the number of Americans living in New York City.
Americans care about numbers like these. A Gallup poll released in June showed that Americans who identify as pro-life jumped to 48% to tie with the 48% who identify as pro-choice.
On top of that, 2016 election exit polls revealed that more than one in five voters considered Supreme Court appointments the “most important factor.” Those voters favored Trump, who promised to appoint “pro-life judges.” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, said no to abortion limits “at any stage of pregnancy,” and was the first presidential primary endorsement by Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.
These numbers show that the Women’s March is out of touch not only with many Americans, but also with women. With time, the group has become less about representing women and more about standing for an agenda – starting with disinviting pro-life women from its first event in 2016, and continuing by excluding conservatives from its convention in 2017.
Until they acknowledge the argument that one person always dies in an abortion, Kavanaugh’s opponents – and the Women’s March – will miss the mark. This isn’t about controlling women’s bodies or punishing women; this is about recognizing the intrinsic dignity of all women, from the unborn to the elderly.