March for Life attendees upset their voices were left out at Women's March

Eliza Collins | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Conway says Trump stands with right to life At the annual March for Life rally Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway urged supporters to continue the fight as the new administration shares their agenda. (Jan. 27)

WASHINGTON — As anti-abortion activists gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for the March for Life on Friday, there was a sense of hope and excitement about what can be achieved under the new administration. But there was also frustration directed at organizers of the Women’s March — which gathered on the same real estate last weekend — for leaving out anti-abortion voices.

Anti-abortion activists say they were denied a role in the Women’s March — which drew an estimated 500,000 people in Washington last weekend — after the event organizers took a stance in favor of abortion rights. Representatives from the Women’s March did not respond to repeated requests for confirmation of the accounts.

“A lot of the things that they want, obviously, equal everything, women’s rights that’s absolutely great. The thing that I had a problem with the Women’s March, was that they disinvited a lot of pro-life groups. And to me whether or not you agree with pro-life — and you know, you’re pro-life, pro-choice whatever — you are still supporting women in some sense,” said Anna Geer, a March for Life attendee from Vienna, Va. “You still want the best for women and I think that was supposed to be the message of the Women’s March, but I don’t think that got conveyed really. I don’t think it was a very inclusive march.”

Geer was carrying a sign that said “Pro-women, pro-life” and says she has been attending the March for Life on and off for the last 18 years.

The Women's March released a policy document that said the march supported "open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people, regardless of income, location or education." Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, also spoke at the event.

“People who were pro-life and told that they couldn’t attend was very upsetting. ... If you don’t agree then you’re not heard,” said Debra McCarthy, who came from Spotsylvania, Va., for the March for Life. “All voices need to be heard without fearing retribution.”

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McCarthy also echoed statements that a handful of march attendees made to USA TODAY that the Women’s March had been violent. There were no arrests the day of the Women's March, though some anti-abortion activists reported verbal harassment and that one woman had been spit on.

“They weren’t all inclusive because they were saying 'we don’t invite pro-life women' and that when you think about it they were adding in ‘the glass ceiling’ and all of these things that had nothing to do with the feminist movement,” said Julia Rothermich, who came to the March for Life as a chaperone with an eighth-grade trip from St. Louis, Mo. She was referring to the term used to describe the limit women or minorities frequently hit in their careers. Former secretary of State Hillary Clinton cast her bid to become the first female president as an attempt to break the "highest, hardest glass ceiling."

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life — a national group of anti-abortion activists on college campuses — said her group was one of those denied partnership in the Women's March, but she attended anyway, along with a few dozen activists.

Hawkins said it was a mistake for march organizers to turn away anti-abortion women because it alienated a portion of their gender and their attendance could have allowed for a more robust discussion.

“I obviously didn’t agree with the Women’s March folks who were anti-Trump. I voted for President Trump,” Hawkins said. “But then that would have been like real diversity of women. And white women voted for Donald Trump and the Women’s March last week was pretty much white women. So I thought that would have been an interesting conversation and say ‘look we can disagree on our politics but let’s all agree on these principles and these are things that we will tolerate and these are things that we will not tolerate as Americans.”

Hawkins said that while many of the overarching goals of the marches were different, there are some areas of overlap.

“We’re all pro-lactation rooms, that’s like the number one thing we tell our groups to do on college campuses is to get diaper changing stations, lactation rooms,” Hawkins said. She noted that the Women’s March advertised pods throughout the city where mothers could breast feed or pump milk. “They were an anti-violence march and that’s what we do every day is we’re anti-violence,” she added.

Hawkins said all Students for Life members were also “really angry” with the 2005 Access Hollywood video that was released in October that showed Trump talking about groping women.

“I don’t know any pro-life student that was like ‘oh yeah, sure grabbing them by the whatever, that sounds good to me.’ Everybody was outraged by that. So obviously there’s common ground there that this language persists within our culture,” she said.