Some pro-abortion activists are frustrated that protests against the overturning of Roe v. Wade have not attracted as much support as the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
Newsweek highlighted the complaints in an article this week and pointed to data comparing the number of protests and size of the crowds between the two.
Pro-abortion protests “have yet to upend American life or generate the same level of attention as the Black Lives Matter protests did in the summer of 2020,” the article states.
On June 24, pro-life advocates won a huge victory when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe and began allowing states to protect unborn babies again for the first time in nearly 50 years. Now, about a dozen states protect unborn babies from abortion, saving more than 120,000 unborn babies lives, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
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The ruling did prompt pro-abortion protests across the United States, and several more have occurred this month in Washington, D.C. and other parts of the country.
According to data from the ACLED database, which compiles statistics about protests, the Black Lives Matter protests were more frequent and larger than pro-abortion protests in response to Roe, Newsweek found.
For example, approximately 2.2 million people participated in 10,201 Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, compared to about 620,000 participants at 1,390 pro-abortion protests this year.
One of those upset about the lack of outrage is Sam Goldman, of RiseUp4AbortionRights, a controversial pro-abortion group that has called for abortion activists to “raise hell” outside churches in protest of Roe. A Daily Beast headline recently described the group as a “communist cult.”
“The majority of the pro-choice movement in this country made a decision to accept defeat in advance and they did not call people into the streets,” Goldman said. “That had a tremendously negative impact.”
She told Newsweek that her group wants pro-abortion protests to become “more, more frequent and louder and probably more disruptive.”
Ironically, despite the massive crime wave targeting pro-life organizations and churches, which Newsweek did not mention, the article argued that one possible reason for the lack of pro-abortion enthusiasm is fear. It asserted that some abortion activists might be afraid to protest “for fear of police violence or attacks from anti-abortion activists.”
Most of the reported threats and violence in recent weeks have targeted pro-lifers, not abortion activists.
Likely the real reason for the disparity is the two causes and what they stand for.
The Black Lives Matter protests focused on ending racism and police brutality in the summer of 2020. As Newsweek described them, “In the days and weeks after a video capturing the excruciating final moments of George Floyd’s life went viral, millions of Americans from all walks of life took to the streets to declare that Black lives matter and prompted a reckoning of America’s history of racial injustice.”
But the pro-abortion protests do the opposite, declaring that unborn babies’ lives do not matter and women should be allowed to abort them for any reason and at any point in pregnancy. Most Americans do not support such extremism.
While abortion activists, many traditional news outlets and Democrat politicians have spouted continuous outrage about the ruling, polls consistently show strong public support for legal protections for unborn babies. LifeNews highlighted 14 recent polls here.
Meanwhile, pro-life protests and rallies, such as the March for Life, see massive crowds every year as Americans call for the right to life for unborn babies to be restored.
