Marching for Life

Americans who desire to protect the unborn are gathering to march, to express their love of life, no matter the age.

Marches are part of our culture. They were probably encouraged as an alternative to revolution, a useful venting of group opinion, and have evolved, it would seem, from civic or sports parades. These in turn find roots in the military marches of conquering, victorious armies through city gates. Americans celebrate moments of civic pride and precious freedom as we parade down Main Street on Independence Day, waving flags. We honor athletes with sports parades. We gather to give voice to civic pride and the return of our men and women from war, those who protect our right to march for life.

As a peaceful democracy, Americans encourage such free speech. We protect the right of people to assemble peaceably and to share opinions publicly. Cities close streets to traffic to aid these demonstrations. They are important vehicles of social discourse, important to our national conversation.

I considered this on a recent Sunday as the acolytes and clergy processed up the red-carpeted aisle of our local church. Processions are a kind of parade, perhaps with a more focused destination. Like parades and marches, processions tell a story, act out a truth. In the church, processions gather us together as we sing hymns and the organ plays and we make a joyful noise to the Lord. As the acolytes and clergy move up the aisle to the high altar, in a wonderful sense, they bring us with them. The procession says to all of us in the pews, let us give thanks, let us rejoice and worship God. Let us prepare to meet him for he is our God and we are his people.

Just so, in Washington, D.C., and many other cities across our great land, hundreds of thousands gather, braving the cold of winter, to say something true as well, to speak publicly in our democratic, peaceful country, pulling together all of us who support the right to life. Their message is simple. The unborn are the same as you and I. The unborn are human beings. We, as a civil people, need to protect them, just as we protect others in our society. We need to allow them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, just as we are allowed these things. And our law should not allow anyone to take these rights from them. For they, the unborn, the tiny little ones growing in the womb, are living human beings, just like you and I.

So we process, we parade, we march. We continue the national conversation peacefully, expressing our hopes and prayers, our love.

How thankful I am to live in a country in which we march, parade, process, and where civil, peaceful, free speech is protected by law.

And how thankful I am for all those who marched for life in cities and towns across our great country.

Christine Sunderland, author of Pilgrimage, Offerings, Inheritance, and Hana-lani (all OakTara), is Vice-President of the American Church Union and lives and writes in Northern California.  http://www.ChristineSunderland.com http://mytravels.ChristineSunderland.com