The College Fix

College students from Catholic schools to the Ivy Leagues to blue state public schools converged on the National Mall for the 38th annual March for Life Monday.

Patrick Brown was one of approximately 400 Notre Dame University students and faculty at the March, and one of the many clad in navy and gold striped scarves.

“I think that, by standing here, we are hopefully bearing witness to (the idea) that there are more options for women who are in crisis pregnancies or feel like there’s no other option,” Brown said.

Brown believes the event encompasses more than simply the abortion issue.

“I think it’s important for us, as Catholics, and for everybody that’s here, to think about all the different ways that human life is disrespected and isn’t given its full dignity, whether it be through abortion, or euthanasia, or the death penalty,” Brown said.

Phil Carper, the lead singer of a Christian pop-rock band, Alakrity, said this was the group’s fourth consecutive year at the March for Life. The past three years, the band has performed at the March through Rock for Life, an pro-life concert organizer.

“Other than us doing what we do, there aren’t a lot of Christian bands like us,” said Matt Berg, who plays guitar for the group.

“Not a lot of Christian bands want to be labeled as a pro-life group,” Carper said.

The band had played pro-life-oriented shows on their way to D.C. for the March for Life. Carper said they generally tour two to three weeks a month, a lot of the time through pro-life events.

The hesitation of Christian rock bands to embrace the pro-life cause, as described by Berg and Carper, may be more a generational thing, though.

John Walsh, a student at West New England College in Springfield, Mass., said he sees a lot of enthusiasm from students in the pro-life movement, but apathy elsewhere.

“All the people here are obviously completely for the life movement, and stand up for what they believe in,” Walsh said. “At the same time, it’s hard because this event is really preaching to the choir.”

“It depends a lot on the type of people you surround yourself with on campus,” Brown said. “I think a lot of times, the general ethic of schools, especially secular and public universities, is one of support for abortion. There’s a belief there that abortion is the only way out.”

Stephen Paquin, the president of CLAY (Choose Life at Yale), described a different campus environment than Catholic Notre Dame.

“It’s difficult at Yale,” he said. “It’s very difficult to engage people in a rational discourse about abortion, because it’s dismissed as more or less a fanatical issue, not a rational one, and not really worthy of a legitimate intellectual discussion. For that reason, it can be very hard.”

CLAY, a nonsecular group with both undergraduate and graduate student members, brought 15 people to the March.

“More than anything else, the pro-life movement needs to be kept in the mainstream dialogue of the country,” Paquin said. “A great deal, in fact over half of all Americans, according to Carl Anderson’s statistics, are pro-life.”

The members of Alakrity said misinformation, and an overall lack of information, about abortion results in college students who won’t express an opinion either way on the issue.

“They are trying to stay out of it,” Carper said.

“I feel like they are really pressured by the other side,” Berg said, “because if they really knew anything (about abortion), they would have an opinion.”

“It’s just easier to stay indifferent than to say something,” Carper said.

Check out photos from the event from a few members on our Facebook Page.

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