How the Left Editorializes the March for Life

The 44th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., last Friday drew throngs of jubilant pro-life supporters from across the country — hundreds of thousands of people, in fact.

Attendees included Vice President Mike Pence; counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway; Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director; Eric Metaxas, an author and talk show host; and many others — who expressed renewed hope for the pro-life movement in America.

“Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and pro-abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice. Avoid abortionist, which connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions.”

“Life is winning again in America,” said Pence — the first vice president ever to address the rally.

“I am a wife. A mother. A Catholic. And a counselor to the president of the United States of America,” Conway told the optimistic crowd. “And yes, I am pro-life. This is a new day, a new dawn for life.”

Yet for all the pro-life exuberance at the rally, the media largely dismissed any reference of the word “pro-life” in its coverage of the March for Life — the world’s largest annual pro-life gathering, marking the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the U.S.

An article by the Associated Press, which ran in myriad media outlets throughout the country, including The Miami Herald, The Seattle Times and ABC News, reported on the event with terms like “the anti-abortion movement,” “abortion opponents,” and “anti-abortion group” — instead of “pro-life,” the “pro-life movement,” even “pro-lifers.”

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Truth be told, there was not a single pro-life reference in the AP article entitled, “Pence Helps Bring New Energy to Anti-Abortion Rally in DC.”

March for Life President Jeanne Mancini said such framing casts the movement in “an intrinsically negative versus positive and proactive light, which is what the pro-life movement is about.”

When asked about this, AP reporter Ben Nuckols, the author of the widely circulated piece, referred this writer to AP’s Lauren Easton, director of media relations.

She, in turn, directed me to the Associated Press Stylebook entry on abortion, which reads: “Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and pro-abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice. Avoid abortionist, which connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions.”

Easton, however, refused to elaborate on AP’s policy of excluding the term “pro-life” entirely from its stylebook. This is disconcerting, considering how widely journalists and news organizations use AP’s editorial guidelines.

Related: Pro-Life Leaders: ‘An Exciting Time for the Movement’

Like the AP article itself, there is not a single pro-life entry in the AP stylebook, numbering some 500 pages. “The AP Stylebook is a must-have reference for writers, editors, students and professionals. It provides fundamental guidelines for spelling, language, punctuation, usage and journalistic style. It is the definitive resource for journalists,” according its website.

This is nothing new, noted Mancini: “For many years, the mainstream media have used this language and have had policies within their organizations requiring any references to pro-life work to be referred to as ‘anti-abortion rights’ or similar.”

Mancini said she first noticed this switch in 2009. “It frames who we are, our work, etc., as something negative instead of positive; we are about life, goodness, mercy — and love. The only thing we are ‘anti’ is violence,” she added.

Still, the pro-life community has gotten a big boost from the Trump administration in recent days. In his first week in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which defunds groups that promote abortions overseas, such as International Planned Parenthood.

Related: New Hope for the Sanctity of All Life

“President Trump’s immediate action to promote respect for all human life, including vulnerable unborn children abroad, as well as conscience rights, sends a strong signal about his administration’s pro-life priorities,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life advocacy group, in an email to LifeNews.com.

And more Americans, it seems, are aligning with the pro-life cause. A recent Marist poll said six in 10 Americans oppose the use of tax dollars to fund abortions in the United States.

If the media’s aim is to weaken or discredit the pro-life movement, Fredericka Mathewes-Green, an Eastern Orthodox author and an ardent pro-life supporter, considers abortion the most important issue of our time — noting that it claims the lives of some 1 million souls every year.

“This is our name, and nobody can take it from us,” she said in a recent blog post. Not even the mainstream media.

Elizabeth M. Economou writes about higher education, health and real estate. She is a former adjunct professor and CNBC staff business writer.