CHRISTIAN RIGHT TO HOLD MAJOR D.C. RALLY 2 DAYS AFTER INAUGURATION

by Bill Berkowitz

(IPS) -- While the "March for Life -- held annually on Jan. 22, memorializing the United States Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision -- has always been one of the high points of the year for anti-abortion organizations and activists, next month's 36th annual gathering may be a much more somber affair.

Nevertheless, two days after the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president, thousands of anti-abortion supporters will gather in the nation's capital.

Despite the bad news on Election Day, two deeply disappointed anti-abortion devotees are dead set on fighting against what they call the most pro-choice presidency in history. While the election saw a net gain in both the House and Senate for pro-choice forces, and some in the "pro-life" community may be weighing a change in their approach as a result of the election of Obama -- labeled by some pro-life critics during the campaign as a "baby killer" -- don't count Jill Stanek or Marjorie Dannenfelser to be amongst the re-thinking crowd.

Stanek, the head of BornAliveTruth, an organization that ran some of the most vicious and effective television advertisements against Obama in a handful of swing states during the campaign, will apparently have nothing to do with either Obama's cadre of "counterfeit" pro-lifers or any compromises on abortion.

In an interview with National Review Online's Kathryn Jean Lopez, Dannenfelser, the president and chairman of the board of the Susan B. Anthony List, described by Lopez as "a nationwide network of over 145,000 Americans dedicated to advancing, mobilising and representing pro-life women in the political process," said that while the "pro-life" movement took a hit, it was "certainly not something we won't recover from."

The good news, according to Dannenfelser, was the re-election of Minnesota's Michele Bachman, the controversial congresswoman who, in a pre-election interview on MSNBC, advocated the investigation of members of Congress that might not be "pro-American" enough for her liking.

The biggest setback Dannenfelser said was the fact that the pro-life movement "will be bereft of the pro-life, pro-woman perspective when and if the first Supreme Court President Obama nominee arises. This is an important and necessary perspective to counter the Boxer/Feinsten/Mikulski feminist axis who no doubt will work very closely again with Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and NOW on the next nomination process."

NARAL is the National Abortion Rights Action League, and NOW is the National Organization for Women, the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States.

Dannenfelser maintained that despite the election results, "The pro-life movement will grow much stronger now. If the movement does its job, we can gain great ground in this climate. With our backs up against the wall because of FOCA [the Freedom of Choice Act], and all three branches of government under pro-abortion control, the movement will retrench, reorganize and re-energize as it did after Clinton came into office."

In a WorldNetDaily column titled "Counterfeit pro-lifers: A case of mistaken identity," Stanek responded to a recent USA Today editorial that declared "After 35 years of trying to outlaw the procedure nationally while chipping away at abortion rights state by state, they have decided to add a new and sensible initiative...[and] [t]hey'll work with the other side to reduce the number of abortions."

For Stanek, who in January 2003, was named by World Magazine as one of the 30 most prominent pro-life leaders of the past 30 years, the "authentic pro-life position is" that "preborn humans are persons to be constitutionally protected" and "abortion is therefore murder and to be remade illegal."

In a story titled "The tidal wave of death" -- posted at JillStanek.com -- Stanek wrote that she hadn't "written on Barack Obama's cabinet appointments because frankly I found it too depressing. This is like watching a Culture of Death tsunami. Nothing we can do to stop it..."

There's Tom Daschle, secretary of Health and Human Services, who is "a rabid pro-abort who also hates abstinence education and supports nationalized healthcare (taxpayer funded abortions)"; former NARAL legal director Dawn Johnson "who will serve on Obama's Department of Justice review team"; and Obama recently named Melody Barnes, who "previously served on the boards of both Planned Parenthood and EMILY's List," to head his Domestic Policy Council.

In addition, Ellen Moran, Obama's new communications director, will "be leaving her job as executive director of EMILY'S List, a group that raises money to elect pro-abort Democrat women."

Stanek also had some advice for Pastor Joel Hunter, who prays with Obama and gave the closing benediction at the Democrat National Convention, and who has "lamented all the 'fighting and... hostility of the culture wars" -- labelled by Stanek as "a pro-life fraud... [that] has no stomach."

She writes: "There is only one way to end this war. Tell your friends to repent or surrender. And you, too."