This year, for the first time, I marched for life on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade as a mom with a babe in arms.

Lucy, enveloped in layers of warm clothing, sat happily in a baby sling on my hip enjoying one of her favorite pastimes, studying people’s faces. She had many thousands of hopeful ones to gaze at that day.

Lucy understands instinctively something that has escaped the post-modern imagination: that we are made to live in relation to each other, not in isolation. The post-modernist’s idea of freedom is a quest for absolute autonomy: autonomy over our bodies, our time, the timing of our children, and even of our own deaths.

Pope John Paul II said this view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society, where “people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another” and “[e]veryone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself” Evangelium Vitae (No. 20).

The March for Life is a political protest, yes, but it is something more. It is a rejection of the post-modern idea of radical individualism, which gives no place to solidarity or openness to others. The teens marching up Constitution Avenue understand this well; their T-shirts announce: “Abortion Is Mean.”

The tens of thousands of people who march each year stand to gain nothing from the success of their efforts. No rights, no raises, no cures for a suffering relation. They march in radical solidarity with fellow members of the human family who have perished unknown, and with those to come, known only to God.

In many respects this year’s march was similar to the 32 marches before it. Taken together, more Americans have marched in this march for this cause than for any other in all of U.S. history. 

But this one felt bigger and brighter.

The American Collegians for Life annual convention before the march was a record-breaker. In 2003, 59 students were in attendance. This year, almost 500 students came from 94 colleges and universities from coast to coast.

At the National Prayer Vigil for Life on the eve of the march, the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception was as packed as I can ever remember it. There is no official count of participants, but 8,500 would not be far off the mark. There were so many cardinals, bishops, priests and seminarians that the opening procession took 25 minutes. My husband timed it.

The prayer vigil used to be the largest annual Mass in the United States, but it has been eclipsed by the rally for life and youth Mass at the MCI Sports Arena the next morning, sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington. This year, the MCI Center reached maximum capacity, 22,000, and young people had to be turned away. The overflow went to St. Patrick’s in the city, a grand Gothic church in Washington and its oldest parish, but that too was filled to capacity. The vocations director of the Archdiocese of Washington told me that an impromptu Mass was said on the street for those who could not get inside.

The March for Life is never a somber event. It is impossible not to be uplifted by the size of the crowd and its youth. But this year there was an added energy. Even The Washington Post — whose march-related news reports I dread to read — said, “The mood was closer to a party than a political protest, and the soundtrack of the day was the laughter of young people.”

The Post, and other newspapers, attributed the exuberance to one man: Samuel Alito. His impending confirmation to the Supreme Court is highly significant, to be sure, but not because he can overturn Roe v. Wade. Even with him, the court will still have a pro-Roe majority.

It is because of what it represents in the broader culture wars. Time magazine reports:  “Not since the doomed Robert Bork has there been a Supreme Court nominee with such a clear record of opposition to abortion. And yet, as Samuel Alito moves closer to Senate confirmation this week, the rumble that many expected over his position on the issue has failed to materialize. That in itself tells us something about the nature of the abortion wars today.”

Indeed. Not only is the Senate’s pro-Roe litmus test becoming a thing of the past, but Roe’s detractors are growing in number. You can see it everywhere, in the press, in the polls, in election returns and in the joyful faces marching this week. In the words of Family Research Council’s Charmaine Yoest, “consensus is building that we are moving into a post-Roe future.”

As I watched the teenagers marching up Constitution Avenue, I imagined Lucy marching with her friends one day. But then I realized it is not impossible that she will be living in that post-Roe future, marching not in protest but in celebration, promising never to go back.

Cathy Ruse is

senior fellow for legal studies

at the Family Research Council.