****The author is a sixteen-year-old sophomore who attends Bishop O’Connell High School in Falls Church, Virginia

The March for Life was an amazing experience, just as it was last year. It really builds up one’s confidence to be part of something so big and inspirational. My day began at 6 a.m. when I woke up to get ready. I left at 7 with my mom to meet up with my junior friend at O’Connell High School, where we also saw some others walking inside to meet everyone going on the bus – for example, my freshman friend Sarah. My friend Erin had gotten dropped off, and we left for D.C.

We went to Old Ebbitt Grill, where breakfast was served in a private room.  Tammy Ruiz gave a presentation about perinatal hospice.  Perinatal hospice is a preparation of parents who choose life for their babies with life-threatening conditions that give them less than a day or an hour to live. It made me feel even more supportive of the Pro-life Movement to find out that such a thing existed.

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The March for Life never fails to inspire me and give me hope for our future. It is such an uplifting experience to be around thousands of people who have compassion for human dignity. We received some much-needed encouragement and support for our message “pro-life for the whole life” and also for remaining in our Democratic Party to fight for those most vulnerable.

Our morning started off with breakfast and an incredible presentation by Tammy Ruiz about perinatal hospice. You can learn more about perinatal hospice by clicking here. I challenge you to keep a dry eye while watching this video. One of the most emotional parts of her speech involved a woman Tammy worked with after she received a prenatal diagnosis. The woman had everything in place and was prepared to deliver a child who would not survive. Fortunately, a medical diagnosis is not always correct, and her child is now six years old and healthy.

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by Diane R. Pagen, LMSW

Do you think that abortion is a joyful and liberating experience, akin to a yoga retreat? This is what abortion rights activists often sound like they are telling us to think. Must you think so, in order to preserve the right to have one? This is the impression I get from celebrities who fancy themselves women’s rights activists. Celebrities, though their opinions are no more informed (and maybe even less informed) than the average person, get media coverage for every statement that they make about any controversial public issue, including one as important and contentious as abortion.

Sometimes those statements are reckless. An example is the writer/actress Lena Dunham, who earlier this year got a few days of media coverage by stating that she wished she had had an abortion already because to have had one would make her a better advocate for women’s abortion rights. The fact that she thinks she knows exactly the effect that terminating a pregnancy would have on her is naïve beyond belief, yet women like Dunham tell the rest of America that women’s empowerment starts by taking lightly a matter so personally and socially difficult as abortion. Damn, she makes having an abortion sound like a virtual rite of passage for people who care about women’s rights.

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by Lisa Stiller

On Saturday, Jan 21 I will join over a million of people taking part in one of over 600 women marches being held throughout the nation, organized as a protest of the “Trump Agenda”. I am walking as a pro-life feminist.

Depending on the city, the marches have different organizers. But most of the marches have at least one prominent organizer at the forefront that is affiliated with a pro-abortion organization (Planned Parenthood, NARAL, etc). The rallying cry for most includes wording clearly referencing “protecting women’s health”, “protecting reproductive choice”, “marching against the war on women,” all code for protecting abortion “rights”.

Because of the endorsement of abortion, at first, I was hesitant to join. But because abortion does not define a women’s agenda, I decided that as a pro-life feminist, I had so many reasons to stand up to everything Trump and his administration stand for. In fact, the Women’s March website lists “reproductive freedom” as one of 12 huge injustices they are standing up against.

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When Republicans nominated the most unpopular candidate for president since Barry Goldwater, pundits believed it was a sure thing that Democrats would retake the United States Senate. Rather than appeal to independents and soft Republicans, Democrats continued with a losing strategy.

They nominated a slate of U.S. Senate candidates – many of whom lost their own re-elections just six years ago – who believe in late-term abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion. The national Democratic message stressed the importance of nominating pro-choice Supreme Court justices and repealing the Hyde Amendment. It once again backfired in purple states.

Our party should not be content being a coastal party and needs to recognize that the bi-coastal messaging does not play in the heartland. Candidates matter. And if the Democratic Party continues to run radically pro-choice candidates in pro-life states, we will never win a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate.

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