Louise Grant, blogpost
Each year, since 2017, SPUC Scotland has taken a group of young people 3,500 miles across the Atlantic to the biggest March for Life in the world in Washington DC.
The trip, which started as a one-off to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Abortion Act in the UK, quickly grew into one of SPUC’s main youth events of the year. We immediately saw the value a trip like this had to offer in building community with our young volunteers and bringing them closer together. The social side, the sense of adventure and fun created a close-knit group and was great for team building. The magnitude of the March for Life in DC helped to fuel their desire to be a voice for the most vulnerable and inspired them to do more for the cause whilst the conferences surrounding the event boosted their education on a wide range of topics. We have seen the trip transform participants individually and as a group and gave many the courage and determination to fight for the existence of a Pro-Life Society at their universities, the request of which had previously been denied. We saw many of them sign up for our street outreach initiative, Project Truth.
Of course, this year due to Covid restrictions we weren’t able to make our usual much‑anticipated trip to the States, but that didn’t stop us joining in the March for Life festivities from home with a March for Life Virtual Day! Covid also meant that the March for Life organisers had to move their event online too, but they had a small group of pro-life leaders who still took to the streets marching towards the Supreme Court.
SPUC’s Youth Department put together a programme of activities for trip alumni to join in with the Virtual March for Life. With the help of Zoom we were able to transport our biggest group yet to the March for Life in DC.
The time difference meant that not everyone could stay until the end, but the door remained open for people to pop in when they could make it and over the course of the night, we had 22 young people join us.
From 5pm – 7.30pm GMT a group of us congregated on Zoom to watch the livestream of the March for Life talks. Being on Zoom with each other meant we could interact with each other and comment on the talks just like we would have if we were together. Speakers on this year’s theme ‘Together Strong, Life Unites’ included Lila Rose of Live Action and Benjamin Watson, former NFL player, and his wife Kirsten. Some of the pro-life leaders who attended the physical march included Abby Johnson of And Then There Were None, Rebecca Kiessling of Save the One and Jeanne Mancini who is the President of the March for Life.
After a break for dinner, we re-joined Zoom at 9.30pm for a quiz and social time! There was a really fun atmosphere throughout the quiz where I played the role of Quizmaster – I loved watching the ‘Find the Object’ round, everyone gets really competitive and it reminded me of some of the games we used to play in DC. When we were there, we slept on airbeds in the Basement Church Hall of St Stephen Martyr Church, which was also provided the best space for a sleeping bag race which became a bit of a competitive tradition. One year we also held an impromptu Ceilidh in that hall for a group of young people from Louisiana who were staying at the same Church, they absolutely loved it. For one of the quiz rounds one of the participants created a ‘Louise against Emmet’ round – as leaders of every trip we went head-to-head on how much we remembered from past trips to gain points for the others. If I won, the girls would receive 5 extra points. If Emmet won, the boys would receive 5 extra points. I’m pleased to say – but I am biased on this occasion - that the ladies emerged victorious on this round. We also had a good laugh reminiscing on past trips to DC and the fun we had, the amazing people we met and what we learned. It has been a great opportunity for everyone to meet their pro-life heroes at conferences and even build friendships with some. It has also proved to be a valuable networking opportunity for SPUC Scotland from giving us ideas about future speakers for our conferences, to giving us the opportunity to speak at events such as the Law of Life Summit which I spoke at in 2019 and 2020. It allowed us the opportunity to learn about lots of organisations we hadn’t heard of before and allowed them the opportunity to get to know us. We were delighted to see on-screen that SPUC was included in the list of organisations which should have been represented at the March for Life this year.
After the quiz and social time, a smaller group had signed up for the Virtual Rose Dinner which was starting at midnight UK-time. The Rose Dinner is a prestigious event we’ve never actually been to before but as they were still organising the talks virtually, it seemed like a good opportunity to get a sneak peek at what goes on at the event. A group of us tuned in whilst tuning into each other via Zoom again. The Keynote speaker for the evening was Tim Tebow, former NFL player and current professional baseball player. Tim has a pro-life story of his own where his mother had been offered an abortion whilst carrying him in the womb. Despite advice from several healthcare professionals, Tim’s mother chose life. We actually were present when she spoke at the March for Life Rally a few years ago.
The Rose Dinner finished around 2am and we all retired to our beds. The next morning, I noted that even if we didn’t physically make the trip to DC this year, the jetlag feeling was the same after the late night!
The event was a lot of fun. Although we would have preferred our physical presence in Washington DC, this was a worthy alternative. Some of the young people messaged me the next day to thank us for putting on the event and to say they had a great time. One participant said it was one of the best online events they had been to. As with all our work in the Youth Department, we aim to educate, inspire, and empower our young people to be the next generation of pro-life leaders and activists. It’s a great boost to us to see the young people grow and also to see them enjoying the events they participate in – even if they have to be virtual at the moment. Covid has certainly changed the way we have to do things, but I think it is important that we still do something and keep the young people involved and motivated. It’s a great motivator for staff as well.
I hope that next year the Scottish flag will once again fly above the March for Life in Washington DC. Until then, the pro-life youth of Scotland are still here, they’re still growing and they’re stronger than ever.