There is currently a huge overturn-Roe v. Wade march outside my office on Capitol Hill, culminating at the Supreme Court. What's shocking is not the to-be-expected thousands of demonstrators marking the 33rd anniversary of Roe, nor the predictable signs: "Protect Life," "Abortion is Homicide," "Born and Reborn," yada yada yada. What's shocking is the number of young people in attendance, the new blood of the culture war--college students, teenagers, pre-teens, even six-year-olds holding signs with pictures of aborted fetuses. As a friend who teaches Sunday school to eighth graders said, "To them, this is a field trip." (For background, see our colleague Eyal Press's brilliant dispatch in the New York Times Magazine this week, "My Father's Abortion War.")
Ari Berman
There is currently a huge overturn-Roe v. Wade march outside my office on Capitol Hill, culminating at the Supreme Court. What’s shocking is not the to-be-expected thousands of demonstrators marking the 33rd anniversary of Roe, nor the predictable signs: "Protect Life," "Abortion is Homicide," "Born and Reborn," yada yada yada. What’s shocking is the number of young people in attendance, the new blood of the culture war–college students, teenagers, pre-teens, even six-year-olds holding signs with pictures of aborted fetuses. As a friend who teaches Sunday school to eighth graders said, "To them, this is a field trip." (For background, see our colleague Eyal Press’s brilliant dispatch in the New York Times Magazine this week, "My Father’s Abortion War.")
Ari BermanTwitterAri Berman is a former senior contributing writer for The Nation.