I received a letter today, in an envelope with no return address. The note was written on a typewriter and signed in pen: “For life, a mom.” I met the note’s sender at last week’s March for Life, where she told me the sad story of an abortion she’s regretted for 35 years. She also informed me of an abortion industry I wasn’t yet privy to—the fetal accessories market. “They make fetus earrings, you know,” the woman told me, indicating the pro-choice establishment. I didn’t tell her I was pro-choice—I just told her I didn’t have my ears pierced. She promised to send me the literature anyway.

A few days later, there they were—nine pages that had seen so many trips through the copy machine that the photographs looked like dark-room negatives. “Please xerox and distribute enclosed and publicized it,” the note read. Most of the literature was fairly standard pro-life material. “WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?” read one page, comparing a photograph of a Holocaust concentration camp with a pile of aborted fetuses. “THE LINK BETWEEN ABORTION AND BREAST CANCER,” read another, before cobbled statistics claiming that women who have their first child before the age of 18 have a reduced risk of cancer.

The abortion accessories, though, were new to me. “FETUS EARRINGS,” read one report, sourced to the “Right to Life of Huntsville, Texas.” It detailed an apparent Australian fashion trend wherein earrings are fashioned from “ten to twelve week old aborted babies who are freeze dried, have an eye-hook put into their heads, and are then made to dangle from the ears.”

Another, “PAPERWEIGHTS: FETUS,” came courtesy of the Pro-Life News. That page reported on the use of unborn baby fat in “face cream, shampoo, and rouge,” as well as paperweights which ranged from $60 to $97.80, depending on the unborn body part suspended in the plastic desk accessory.

I won’t be sending these pages through the copier again; I won’t gather them up, stake out a street corner, and pass them out to anyone willing to open their hand, take a piece of paper, and scan its words in the steps from there to the trash can. The personal note, though—a testament to how much we all have invested in this issue—is worth remembering.

Photographs by Amanda Hess

Above: Associate Press video of last week’s March for Life activities. But before you watch, beware! This footage has not been approved by the seasoned media critics over at the comment section at ProLifeBlogs.com. Among their critiques:

“Why is it that the prolifers can go through the entire march without spotting a single proabortion counter protester, but the MSM can always find them and give them airtime?”

“Notice too how they mostly interview a white male for the prolife side, and the woman for the pro-choice side? That’s another myth they love to perpetuate, that it’s only or mostly white men who are prolife. WHat a crock of doo-doo.”

“AP is worthless. Have been for a long, long while.”

Forgetting the purpose of the Right to Life protest what was MPD’s logic in allowing all of their buses to load and unload in the middle of Capitol Hill?

I spent 25 minutes trying to cross (with a crossing guard no less) 6th Street to Mass Ave at Stanton Square Park last night around 5 pm. There were hundreds of kids running around the park waiting for their buses. That square is a giant traffic mess in a regular rush hour let alone when there are 10-15 charter buses idling. Then when I finally reached my car to drive to Walter Reed there were another 5-10 buses parked along the H street overpass behind union station picking up kids who were sprinting across the highway.

MPD has really disappointed me the last 3 days. I was one of the Purple Tunnel doom victims and now this!

Please let me know the logic.

* On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, thousands of protesters flooded the mall for the annual March for Life. These are their stories.

* On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a man rammed an “older SUV” into a Minnesota Planned Parenthood, preventing no abortions and hurting no one. “It’s never happened before and we don’t expect it to happen again,” said a regional exec.

* On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Tiger Beatdown participated in “Blog for Choice” by imagining the decision on its 36th birthday: “Roe vs. Wade is thirty-six years old today! This means that, if it were a person, its friends and relatives would already be talking to it about how it totally should have had a baby by now, don’t you think?”

* On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Obama issued a statement reaffirming his commitment to “protecting a woman’s right to choose” and “ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons,” surely disappointing that guy (above). [via Rolling Stone]. Obama’s full statement is after the jump.

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.

While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue, no matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make. To accomplish these goals, we must work to find common ground to expand access to affordable contraception, accurate health information, and preventative services.

On this anniversary, we must also recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons: the chance to attain a world-class education; to have fulfilling careers in any industry; to be treated fairly and paid equally for their work; and to have no limits on their dreams. That is what I want for women everywhere.

Even before the 2009 March for Life kicked off today on the National Mall, pro-lifers were complaining—to the Washington Times, no less—that the media was not giving them a fair shake. The complaints are pretty much garden variety press gripes: stories too limited in scope; participants not afforded the full, sympathetic profile treatment; items pushed to the back pages or not published at all. Here’s why pro-lifers will have even less clippings to scrapbook after this year’s coverage:

The inauguration. While the crowd may be large, it’s a footnote in comparison to the massive sea of humanity that flooded the mall on Tuesday. Plus, people are expecting pro-lifers to show up. They’re like the fat guy who scarfs down 28 wieners at Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest every year—sure it’s impressive, but look at that tiny lady who ate 59 in her first event!

It’s a thankless assignment. No matter what you write on a subject like abortion, not everybody it going to love you for it. You’re lucky if you get the framing right. Follow AP Style and go the “pro-abortion rights” and “anti-abortion” route and you’ll be on the receiving end of a flood of e-mails from pro-lifers alleging they know where your sympathies lie. That the media is bias against their position is probably one of the only issues on which both sides agree.

“Once in a yeartime” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Roe v. Wade will be still be around next January, and the marchers will too. While Obama may be for abortion rights, he’s not in favor of political suicide, and that ruling is not going anywhere anytime soon. Unless something completely unforseeable happens, we’ll be in the same situation next year.

Can’t quote a fetus. Journalists love the “voice to the voiceless” angle that pro-lifers advance, but they can’t speak to the unborn, even on deep background.

It’s an off year. Thirty-six doesn’t end with a five or a zero. Sorry, no reflective what does this mean for our country pieces.

Nothing newsworthy happens. Marches and protests, no matter what the cause, are pre-scheduled events intended to attract media attention, and journalists are mindful of that fact. These are pro-lifers, so don’t expect any violence to write home about.

Rick Washington, a 54-year-old Temple Hills resident, watched the March for Life pass him buy from a busy spot alongside the National Gallery of Art. Washington, a graphic designer, was there to hawk mementos more fitting Tuesday’s National Mall crowd—full-color 2009 calendars featuring photographs of the Obama family.

Washington insists his gear was still selling well. “As far as I can tell, he ain’t falling one way or another [on abortion],” Washington said of the newly minted president.

Washington himself was having trouble picking sides. When pressed, Washington identified as “anti-abortion,” then as “pro-choice,” then back-tracked to lay out his own abortion philosophy. “Nobody can tell you what to do. Only God can tell you what to do with your life,” he says. “Even Obama, he can’t tell you what to do about anything. He’s only a man, after all.”

This 67-year-old pro-life activist at today’s March for Life, who didn’t want her name published—”I’m very well known, and I don’t want people to know I’ve had an abortion,” she says—lists three things to like about our new President.

1. “He’s married, even though it’s to that angry, hateful Michelle, who last year delivered a pro-abortion speech, a pro-abortion speech at a Planned Parenthood abortuary.”

2. “He has two children, who will be shocked to learn later that he said he would be willing to kill their child.”

3. “He’s educated. But I have five degrees, and they mean nothing to me, just a bunch of dust piled upon nothing alongside the abortion I have to live with every day of my life.”

The activist wears a child’s lipstick toy around her neck, a sign of solidarity to another politician—Sarah Palin, who has stronger presidential credentials, she says: “She showed such bravery to carry a Downs Syndrome child to term at the age of 42.”

“It’s a Vietnam for women,” says the activist of the anti-abortion fight. She counts May 6, 1974, as the day she lost everything in the war. “I aborted—killed—dismembered—my own child,” she says. “I never would have done it if it were illegal. They made it seem so easy, cheap, legal, and moral. It’s not.”

The activist hasn’t recovered from the abortion she had 34 years ago. But she’s been healed by the grace of God. She was one of the lucky ones, she says: “Women who have abortions, they either kill themselves or become Christians.”

High school students Elizabeth Liang, 18, Morgan Seibert, 17, and Megan Gutting, 17, took a whirlwind trip to Washington, D.C. by bus last night to participate in the march for life. The three Grand Rapids, Mich. teens, who arrived at 7 this morning, missed the inaugural festivities by a couple days—they opted to attend the protest instead of the celebration—but still shared in the excitement of their new pro-choice President.

“I love Obama,” says Gutting, who carried a sign reading, “A Nation That Kills Its Own Children Is A Nation Without Hope.” “But for reasons other than abortion, obviously.”

“He’s very positive,” adds Liang, carting an “As A Former Fetus I Oppose Abortion” sign. “He’s about change, and unity.”

Seibert, who inscribed a Dr. Suess quote—”A Person Is A Person No Matter How Small”—on her sign, added to the Obama accolades. “I think he’s what we need right now,” she said.

John Wyne, a 41-year-old Fairfaxer, has been thrifty and consistent in his prolife marching equipment. For eight or nine years, he has carried a 4-foot coffin that he constructed out of cardboard and electrical tape to the March for Life events on the National Mall.

On top of the coffin is an American flag inscribed with abortion stats—the 45 million number is closer to 47 million now, he says—and is bespotted with red food coloring. “Obviously, it’s supposed to simulate blood,” says Wyne.

The brightly attired coffin, however, isn’t even close to being as provocative as Wyne’s solution to the issue at hand. Instead of letting women have abortions, says Wyne, they should be paid to carry their pregnancies to term. “If the problem is that it’s an economic choice, that can be taken away,” said Wyne at the precise moment that today’s Dow was down 213.94 points. “We have plenty of money.”

Carolyn Zolbe, marcher in the March for Life and Arlington resident, thinks this about President Barack Obama: “I think he’s a child of God.”

Zolbe’s daughter, Grace Doherty, isn’t quite as neutral in her assessment:

“If you don’t view the value of life, how could your other views have any quality.” Zolbe, who wears a winning smile to accompany her mom-thanking sign, tells her daughter to pirouette for the camera: Doherty, for her part, wears a string of bloody baby heads dangling down her back, with a sign that says, “Some choice.”

Having noted that I am the daughter of someone, Zolbe asked for my mother’s name so that she could pray for my mother, “because she chose life.”

Many, many thousands of people have clustered on the Mall for the 36th Annual March for Life. If you’re putting on a demonstration, you, of course, must have a theme. In this department, the March for Life, well, it could use a wordsmith or two. Here it is, taken straight from the March’s Web site: “Remember—the Life Principles mean “Equal Care” with No Exceptions!” The site goes on to explain that the theme means simply that equal care must be provided to the pregnant mother and to her “preborn child.”

OK, so that’s straightened out.

Whatever the abstruse theme, the marchers at the March for Life are carrying on with messages and props that go way back. Take Chris Harmon, who hails from the rugged coal- and French-and-Indian-War-country of western Maryland–the Cumberland area, to be more precise.

Harmon has brought along a 15-foot white pole with a cluster of red balloons at the end. Symbolism, please? “It’s just the martyrs–the babies and the martyrs,” says Harmon. This is the same prop that Harmon has been bringing to this event for the past 20 years. And the effect isn’t merely symbolic. “It also looks really great on EWTN,” says Harmon, referring to the Eternal World Television Network, the Global Catholic Network.

Reporting by Amanda Hess, writing by Erik Wemple

Today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. This was a great day for pro-choice women, but the pro-lifers have always celebrated it the hardest. Today, thousands of anti-abortion activists will descend on Washington, D.C. to protest the 36-year-old decision in front of the downtown Planned Parenthood clinic, the U.S. Capitol, and the U.S. Supreme Court in the March for Life 2009. Here’s a map of their protest plans.

I’ll be reporting from the march throughout the day.

Photo by PinkMoose