Pro-life women have been disinvited from a “Women’s March”

 Telling pro-life women to shut up and go away is a waste of time. Some people who don’t get that are about to be enlightened.

The “Women’s March” on Washington has rejected participation by New Wave Feminists, who are pro-life. First, the organizers ignored NWF, then just a couple of days ago agreed to list them as a participating group in the Women’s March, then yanked the invitation today after press coverage ensued and Twitter hit the fan.

You have probably heard of this planned “Women’s March,” which will take place next Saturday, January 21 in Washington. I refuse to drop the quotation marks, or link to any official site for it, since now I know for sure what I’ve suspected all along: the organizers are under the thumb of leading abortion advocates who don’t think pro-life women count as women. The “Women’s March” is supposedly a way to declare resistance to President-elect Trump (hey, I’ve been on that train for awhile, girls; catch up).

Now we know that while Trump might be the excuse for the march, he’s not the reason.

NWF sought admission to the “Women’s March” as – wait for it – pro-life women. There was no concealment of the group’s reason for being, which is to be pro-life. The “Women’s March” is supposed to be about unity and action, after all, according to its promo material. The short-lived decision to welcome NWF prompted some press coverage, particularly by The Atlantic. Rage ensued, and NWF was disinvited, presumably relegating pro-life women back to their ghetto.

“Women’s March,” you are messing with people who have long memories and vibrant associations with very active social media accounts.

Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa of New Wave Feminists, in Washington on the day of the 2018 March for Life. Ellen Kolb photo.

Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa of NWF made a 28-second announcement on Facebook, linked below. Language alert (and I don’t blame her).

https://www.facebook.com/NewWaveFeminists/videos/1372790586076392

Destiny and NWF will be there anyway, “whether we are official partners or not.” Good.

Aimee Murphy of Life Matters Journal and Rehumanize International said in a Facebook video, “We will still be there with a great group of young feminists that stand for the rights of all human beings regardless of their circumstances….The reason that we are pro-life really hinges on an understanding of the equal dignity of human beings.”

Remember all this when you see what is bound to be massive coverage of the “Women’s March” on the 21st. Pro-life women were excluded by the organizers and are going to show up anyway.

I’m going to seek these women out at the March for Life in Washington on the 27th so I can thank them and encourage them in person.  They will be there.

Closer to home, the “Women’s March”-ette in Concord on the 21st has inspired a pro-life contingent that has been granted a permit to demonstrate on the sidewalk in front of the State House while the “Women’s March”-ette takes place on State House plaza. I have it on good authority that there was resistance on the part of the City of Concord to issuing the permit to the pro-lifers, but one was finally issued (I believe the word “attorney” entered the conversation at one point, but that’s secondhand information).

On Martin Luther King Day, of all days, pro-life women have been told they’re unwelcome at a “Women’s March.” Let that sink in.

Fortunately, pro-life women don’t need anyone’s permission to do their thing.

Originally published at Leaven for the Loaf. Edited and links updated February 2026.

Open Book: “The Life You Save May Be Your Own: an American Pilgrimage”

The first week of each month brings Open Book, a blog linkup co-hosted by My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com with a roundup of what participating bloggers have been reading lately.

Not long ago, I was in Boston for a program on Catholic education. Among the speakers was Paul Elie of Georgetown University, of whom I hadn’t heard until that day. As authors are wont to do, he brought a pile of his books for sale and signing, and I’m glad I took the time to visit his table. I picked up a gem, in the form of his book The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage.

The Life You Save is a work of spiritual biography, weaving together the lives and vocations of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Walker Percy, and Flannery O’Connor. All were Catholic writers, although “writer” was not necessarily the principal earthly vocation. No two of them became and remained Catholic via the same path. As Elie writes in the Prologue,

It is in their lives and their work together that their influence is found, and that this telling of their story is meant to explore. Today, as when they were alive, they are representative figures, whose struggles with belief and unbelief are vivid and recognizable. At the same time, as they venture forth together, their story suggests a series of different ways of pilgrimage, with the episodes highlighting patterns that the yearning for religious experience can take, in their time and in ours.

I’m taking my time with The Life You Save. I find myself re-reading passages two or three times, and then reflecting for awhile before reading on.

I was surprised to see that the book was published in 2003. How did I not come across it until now?

photo of shelves of books
Photo: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay

Open Book: an assortment of biographies

The first Wednesday of each month brings Open Book, a blog linkup co-hosted by My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com with a roundup of what participating bloggers have been reading lately. 

The recent feast of St. Edmund Campion prompted me to pick up Evelyn Waugh’s Campion biography for the first time in many years. I raved about the book in a post a few days ago. 

I’m wrapping up Edmund Morris’s Theodore Roosevelt trilogy with Colonel Roosevelt. I’ve enjoyed the entire biography. Given Roosevelt’s broad interests, a book about him must cover history and geography as well as politics. Morris wove all the threads together beautifully.

Purchased for my Kindle but unopened as yet: Eric Metaxas’s 7  Women. I’ve read only a few pieces from Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners, and I look forward to reading more. I’ve just purchased an e-book version of an old favorite, Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, and I’ll be glad to immerse myself in that story once again soon.

Basket of books, cup of tea
Photo by Kaboompics .com on Pexels.com