The Women’s March on Washington, planned for January 21, is expected to be massive, the single largest anti-Trump protest of Inauguration Weekend. Anti-abortion groups are loudly pouting that the march is supported by pro-choice groups like Planned Parenthood, and so they plan to “infiltrate” it. They’re going to do that by just attending it and making it even bigger, which is surely a very sophisticated strategy that I am perhaps not smart enough to comprehend.
There’s already been plenty of debate about the ideologies behind the Women’s March, spurred by white women who seem upset that they might be forced to think about race or class when they’re just trying to engage in a little soft-focus, low-level activism that makes them feel good before brunch. Now, as conservative outlet the Washington Times reports, “pro-life” women will “infiltrate” the gathering, claiming that a march attended by groups that support abortion rights is implicitly anti-woman:
Catherine Glenn Foster, founder of the Sound Legal Group, condemned the march’s inclusion of Planned Parenthood. She said the Women’s March on Washington cannot claim to speak for women while kowtowing to the abortion industry.
“The Women’s March on Washington claims to be about human rights, nonviolence, and confronting injustice,” Ms. Foster said in a statement. “But by accepting Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and other abortion activism organizations as co-sponsors, the Women’s March on Washington has betrayed its mission and failed to confront the injustice in front of its face.”
The anti-abortion groups participating in the march are being organized by Brandi Swindell, the founder and CEO of an Idaho crisis pregnancy center chain called Stanton Healthcare, that, contrary to its name, does not actually provide healthcare. Swindell told the Christian outlet Charisma News she also represents women who want to see Obamacare overturned and Planned Parenthood defunded.
Less than week later is the anti-abortion movement’s biggest event of the year, the annual March for Life. This year, Trump adviser and normalizer-in-chief Kellyanne Conway is a keynote speaker.