Religion & Law

Yesterday several hundred thousand Americans Marched for Life in Washington, DC to mark the 38th anniversary of the Supreme Court's tragic rulings in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. I attended the March with a delegation of Princeton students and recent alumni.  There were fifty of us this year---our number depressed a bit by the fact that our campus Evangelical fellowships were holding their annual religious retreats this week (which happens to be the break between semesters at Princeton).  Still, we were pleased to join with so many of our fellow citizens to bear witness to the sanctity of human life and to peaceably assemble to petition the (judicial branch of) government for the redress of grievances.

Among the many heartening features of the March was the tremendous number of young people who participated.  The crowd was filled with high school and college students.  Many of them wore a button saying:  "I'm pro-life.  Ask me why?"  They were ready, willing, and able to make the argument for honoring the dignity and right to life of human beings at every stage of development and in every condition.  It was impossible for me not to think back to the mid-1970s, when we were told that the full acceptance of abortion was 'inevitable.'  Young people, pro-choice activists said, don't share the old "hang ups" about abortion---they will grow up taking abortion for granted as a great boon for society and as essential to women's equality and freedom.

Well, things didn't turn out that way.