March for Life attendees split on who they're backing in 2024 presidential election
Reflecting on her career in the abortion industry, MacLellan said, "When I joined, I honestly believed that I was helping women, and then I realized by a thousand small cuts that we were actually doing the exact opposite."
Instead of helping women, MacLellan said, "the only option we were providing was death to babies."
MacLellan detailed her spiritual journey as a "convert" to Catholicism who first embraced her faith after leaving her position as an abortion clinic worker behind. Before she embraced Jesus, MacLellan considered herself "non-religious."
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"This fight is essential," she insisted when asked about the pro-life movement. "Even though there was the Dobbs decision at the Supreme Court, we need to fight harder than ever before because now, instead of one federal decision, we have 50 states that we need to work on the legislature for."
Annalise Bachmann, a student at the K-12 classical Christian school Rockbridge Academy near Annapolis, Maryland, attended the march for the third time with her classmates.
"I think the current best candidate is DeSantis, who is very much for a bigger ban on abortion than a candidate like Trump is," she told CP. "And obviously, anyone who supports life is important to have in the White House."
Bachmann, affiliated with the pro-life group Students for Life of America, praised the current state of the pro-life movement as "really mobilizing." She expressed gratitude that "Gen Z is really waking up to the horror of abortion," referring to the youngest generation of American adults and teenagers.
"We're the generation that cares about science," she said. "Science about ... life in the womb is very clear."
Bachmann also called on the pro-life movement to "unify" and "find a common slogan and find common ground."
"Right now, there's a lot of debate on do we want a heartbeat bill, do we just want a 15-week ban, do we want protection at conception," she said, urging the movement to "rally around protection at conception" at the national level as well as state-level efforts to secure "equal funding for pregnancy resource centers."
After detailing how Generation Z "has lost a third of our generation to abortion," Bachmann predicted that "2024 is going to be the start of a new generation, and we hope that much more of them are going to survive and that the youth of this nation are going to mobilize for the movement."
The pro-life group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America has called on all Republican presidential candidates to vow to support a federal 15-week abortion ban if elected.
Meanwhile, Democrats will likely push to codify the right to abortion into federal law if they control all three branches of government after the 2024 election. If passed, the Women's Health Protection Act will have the effect of nullifying most pro-life laws passed at the state level.
Kirk Kramer, a resident of Maryland, has been coming to the March for Life since about 1990. As a pro-life Democrat in a movement increasingly dominated by Republicans, Kramer offered a unique perspective on the state of the pro-life movement and the 2024 presidential election.
As for the Democrat politicians currently on the national stage, Kramer expressed support for former Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, who recently left office due to term limits: "I wish he'd run for the Democratic nomination for the president. He was a very successful governor for two terms. He's a Democrat, and he's pro-life."
"The party wants to get rid of us," he lamented. "The Democratic Party has always been the party of the little guy, and one of the little guys who needs to be protected is the unborn child, so I think that my party is the natural party … of legal protection for the unborn."
Regarding the 2024 presidential election, Kramer signaled his intention to vote for the American Solidarity Party candidate as he had done since 2016. Kramer described the minor political party as "pro-life, pro-labor, pro-Earth, pro-community, [and] pro-family."
The party is running Peter Sonski as its presidential nominee this year, with Lauren Onak as its vice presidential nominee. Even though he does not plan on voting for the Democrat ticket in the 2024 presidential election, Kramer still identifies as a Democrat and has no intention of changing that.
"They're not going to run me out of my party," Kramer vowed. "I'm not a Republican. I don't agree with a single thing in the Republican Party platform except its opposition to abortion."
Identifying the late March for Life founder Nellie Gray as a "pro-life Democrat like me" and a "strong proponent of the paramount Human Life Amendment to the Constitution," Kramer called on state legislatures to take action to "protect unborn babies and jail abortionists." Kramer said that he would like to see the U.S. Constitution amended to protect unborn babies.
Discussing his political philosophy, Kramer said he believes "in the consistent ethic of life." He expressed opposition to abortion, war, euthanasia and separating undocumented immigrant children from their parents or guardians at the U.S. southern border.
Kramer pointed to pro-life Democrats such as 1972 Democratic vice presidential nominee Sargent Shriver, his wife Eunice Kennedy Shriver and former Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey, Sr. as his political role models.
Kramer took issue with the notion that the Republican Party is the pro-life party, noting that 1964 Republican presidential nominee and former Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., was "one of the most fanatical pro-abortionists who ever sat in the U.S. Senate."
Adding that Goldwater's wife was a founding member of Planned Parenthood in Arizona in the 1930s, Kramer declared, "There is no natural connection between the Republicans and opposition to abortion."
Kramer highlighted the need "to take steps to help mothers who are in difficult situations, which means the government needs to cough up the money to help women and families." Kramer concluded the interview by proclaiming that the pro-life movement made "a bad mistake by getting into bed with Donald Trump."
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
