Simon Cox Blog: Women’s March Sets Out to Exclude 40 Percent of American Women

Wednesday, 18 January 2017

Women’s March Sets Out to Exclude 40 Percent of American Women

What pro-life feminists actually have in common with their pro-choice counterparts.

Ahead of the Women’s March on Washington scheduled the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Emma Green at The Atlantic asked, “Is there room in the movement for people who morally object to abortion?” Her article portrayed some of the hundreds of pro-life women planning to attend either in solidarity with fellow feminists or in protest.

Meanwhile, the event organizers came up with their own response: No.

Hours after Green’s article published on Monday, the Women’s March—promising to be “one of the most intersectional marches in US history” with more than 200,000 attendees expected—stated that New Wave Feminists, the pro-life group featured, would be removed from its 450-plus sponsor organizations. (A pro-life pregnancy crisis center in Idaho, Stanton Healthcare, remains listed as a partner.)

“We look forward to marching on behalf of women who share the view that women deserve the right to make their own reproductive decisions,” the group said. Access to abortion and birth control were included among 1 of 16 values and principles guiding the grassroots rally.

Though the pro-life New Wave Feminists still plan to attend, many women of faith were disappointed in the decision to remove their official designation. Christians spanning from Life Action founder Lila Rose to LGBT advocate Julie Rodgers spoke out on Twitter on behalf of pro-life feminists.

“Progressives have a chance to build a broader coalition here, and they are blowing it,” tweeted author Rachel Held Evans.

“Painful irony of pro-choice stance of Women's March is that abortion was likely THE issue to tip scales for evangelical women to vote Trump,” said Hannah Anderson, ...