MARCH FOR LIFE: UNMASKED
Time to meet the bullies hiding behind the rosaries
This Years annual March AKA Unbornaroo takes place January 24th in Washington DC. So let’s break down what this clown show is all about.
First of all, it ain’t just a march. IT'S A MOVEMENT.
March For Life (M4L) is an anti-abortion, anti-feminist mega-organization that works with influential anti-birth control & anti-LGBTQ+ groups that include conservative houses of worship, lobbyists, and politicians, to not only end access to abortion, but to also destroy civil rights for LGBTQ+ folks. They like to hide behind a veneer of respectability and veil how extreme they really are, even as they welcome insurrectionists, white nationalists and white supremacists to their events. That’s why M4L needs to be unmasked.
March For Life started in 1974 as a protest in DC against the Supreme Court decision known as Roe v. Wade. The group’s main event each January draws over 100k anti-abortion extremists to Washington D.C. to march, lobby, and mobilize. Over the decades, M4L has become a national multi-million dollar not-for-profit juggernaut that works year-round spreading dangerous disinformation about abortion, gender, and sexual health on college campuses, at churches, and at all levels of government.
CHECK OUT SOME OF THE FAMILIAR AND NOT-SO FAMILIAR FACES WHO SPONSOR & SUPPORT M4L
March For Life doesn’t work alone. They have many partners who help fund them, and they commingle their bases to enhance their collective power. Through their alliances they have successfully worked to escalate harassment outside of reproductive health centers, pass legislation that ends protections for LGBTQ citizens, and have profoundly eroded access to legal abortion, especially for marginalized folks, including BIPOC who need affordable and accessible reproductive care, not only in America, but around the world.
These organizations’ efforts have only become more emboldened and they’ve moved their goalposts WAY down the field ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned, as they aim to criminalize reproductive care and transgender healthcare, remove access to birth control, and eliminate the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans.
What is "March for Life: Unmasked"?
March for Life: Unmasked is part of a larger project from Abortion Access Front (AAF) called “Hypocrites Unmasked.”
The anti-abortion movement is a hydra of dangerous, hypocritical factions, each with its own unique characteristics. That’s why AAF created Hypocrites Unmasked to break them down so folks can learn what sets each faction apart, the terrifying tactics they use, and the influence each group wields in their own communities and nationally, with politicians on the local, state, and federal level.
With each organization we “unmask,” you will learn about their history, their mission, see videos of their harassment, and see firsthand how their tactics impact patients, providers, and access to reproductive care.
We track their every move throughout the year, and when they hold regional events, we organize calls to action to counter them with truth and humor to raise awareness about the harm they cause, to help protect clinics from their harassment, and to hold the politicians who promote their dangerous beliefs accountable.
HERE ARE JUST SOME OF THE WAYS WE UNMASK MARCH FOR LIFE
When Abortion Access Front heard that M4L partner “40 Days for Life” (don’t worry, they’ve got their very own Hypocrites Unmasked page too!) was planning to ambush an independent clinic that we were supporting in Raleigh, North Carolina, we organized a “welcome committee” to greet the 40 Days for Life tour bus. When they pulled up in front of the clinic, we had a hysterical counter-protest and a freshly painted mural to tell them how we felt about their harassment.
And of course we LOVE disrupting the actual March For Life in person and online! In the before times, we projected messages on the exteriors of the venues where they hold their big fundraising galas and face them down demanding to know where their “pro-life” asses are when it’s time to show up for ACTUAL crises involving people’s lives. Follow @AbortionFront on social media to stay up to date with future efforts to unmask them in-person and online!
We also use these “unmaskings” to expose the intersections and connections specifically between the anti-abortion movement and those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Abby Johnson, a featured speaker at the 2020 March for Life, was herself at the Trump rally on Jan 6th and cheered on the insurrection on social media as it unfolded. We make noise so that the media begins to make these connections between anti-abortion extremists and these larger anti-government, Christian supremacist movements.
And when the media needs a push, we give it to them, like after the 2022 March For Life, when AAF founder Lizz Winstead and Renee Bracey Sherman from We Testify co-authored an op-ed for NBC News exposing the overlap between March For Life and white nationalists, white supremacists, militias and insurrectionists.
And we keep this up all year long! With ongoing campaigns like our #ExposeFakeClinics initiative we continue to raise awareness about the fake clinics that so many March for Life organizations fund and run. We expose the manipulative tactics that these groups use to trick and shame pregnant people and we share tools for fighting back!
Like what you see here? join us!
There are ways for EVERYONE to take part in this critical movement, and we need YOU to take action with us: Show the world that the majority of Americans support reproductive freedom. Show politicians that we demand protections for reproductive healthcare. And show the frontline workers who provide abortion care every day that we have their backs. Find out more and sign up to get involved with Abortion Access Front right here! New to pro-abortion activism? Check out Operation Save Abortion where you can find training videos, toolkits, and a national activism calendar!