By Dave Andrusko

Let me see if I understand Julie Zauzmer’s piece in today’s Washington Post. The headline reads, “The abortion issue is more polarized than ever, leading some to view March for Life as a Republican rally.”
So (writing in the “Acts of Faith” column, by the way) is Zauzmer saying there are no Democrats speaking at tomorrow’s rally that begins at noon on the Washington Mall? No, she isn’t, because she can’t. Two Democrats—one a congressman, and one a state Rep. from Louisiana—will speak as will two Republicans.
Is Zauzmer saying the March organizers are deliberating excluding Democrats? No, she isn’t, because she can’t because they aren’t.
Is Zauzmer implying the hundred to two hundred thousand people who will flock to the nation’s capitol would prefer that there no pro-life Democrats be allowed to speak? No, she isn’t, because there is zero evidence this is true.
So what is she arguing?
But some liberal-leaning antiabortion activists criticize the March for Life for alienating Democrats by embracing polarizing figures, from the president and vice president to this year’s featured speaker, Ben Shapiro, a popular conservative commentator.
Oh, now I get it. Sure Vice President Mike Pence has been a pro-life champion for decades, but he shouldn’t have been invited to be on the stage and speak in 2017, because it would annoy “liberal-leaning antiabortion activists.”
Who might those “activists” be? Zauzmer quotes “Michael Wear, a political strategist who worked for Barack Obama on outreach to religious voters.” We’ve written about Wear before.
He wrote a book titled, Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House About the Future of Faith in America. In that book and in an interview he gave to Emma Green of the Atlantic magazine, Wear painted a picture of President Obama that was absurdly off-base.
If you were to believe Wear, Obama was like an unrequited lover, reaching out to pro-lifers who did not reach back. It was a preposterous distortion. Obama couldn’t have any more pro-abortion or any less receptive to conservative people of faith.
Wear goes on tell Zauzmer that “Democrats generally feel marginalized at the March for Life. . .” Why? “Partisanship is trumping quite a bit these days, especially given the pretty firm stake that the establishment pro-life movement has placed in the presidency of Donald Trump.”
So, if over pro-abortion Democratic resistance, Donald Trump has delivered on numerous promises he made to the pro-life Movement and is working on accomplishing others, in Wear’s view, the March for Life shouldn’t have allowed him to be the first President to ever deliver remarks via satellite from the White House Rose Garden to the March, right?
The response from pro-lifers ought not to be gratitude but a cold shoulder lest the Michael Wears of this world are annoyed.
Is he serious? Sure (I guess). Does it make any sense? Of course not.
I grew up at a time when most pro-lifers were Democrats, at both the state and federal level. There are now virtually no pro-life Democrats in Congress and a diminishing (but still much appreciated) number in the state houses. Republicans are the party of life.
Pro-life Democrats will be always be welcomed at any pro-life gathering. The cause of life ought not to be partisan.
But Democrats, by embracing a militant position on abortion (and I do mean militant), have made it so. It takes courage to stand up to the party bosses. Those Democrats brave enough to stand up to the likes of Nancy Pelosi have nothing but our greatest admiration.
