President Trump Chastises Media for Not Covering the March for Life
President Donald Trump criticized the media for something that has long irritated advocates for the unborn, the failure of the press to cover the annual March for Life.
In an interview with ABC News Wednesday, David Muir asked Trump if he could hear the crowds gathered at the Women's March on Washington the day after his inauguration, where hundreds of thousands of women gathered to voice their dissent.
"No, I couldn't hear them," President Trump said, acknowledging the large crowd size. "But you're going to have a large crowd [this] Friday too, which is mostly pro-life people."
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"And I will say this and I didn't realize this, but I was told," he added, "you will have a very large crowd of people ... pro-life people, and they say the press doesn't cover them."
"I don't want to compare crowd sizes again," Muir replied.
"No, you shouldn't, but what they do say is that the press doesn't cover them," Trump reiterated.
Longtime pro-life advocates were encouraged.
"It's refreshing that President Trump is willing to point out the lack of coverage for the March for Life," said Arina Grossu, director for the Center for Human Dignity at the Washington-based Family Research Council in an email Thursday to The Christian Post.
Top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway has been planning on speaking at the March and on Thursday it was announced that Vice President Mike Pence would also attend and speak in person.
"Now with the announcement that Vice-President Mike Pence will speak at the March, the media can no longer ignore us," Grossu added. "We ask the media to show the world how many pro-lifers are actually marching. On average 250,000 to 650,000 people march at the March for Life annually."
"If at the Women's March, people showed up in 'numbers too big to ignore,' why is it okay to ignore the same or more numbers of pro-lifers who march on Washington every year? If the media wants to recover some of its damaged reputation in the eyes of the American people, they need to cover the news without bias and offer the March for Life the same measure of coverage as it afforded the Women's March," she continued.
And indeed comparisons in the press of not only crowd size but of the ideological clash occurring between the marches are likely.
As the Washington Post reported Wednesday, when the Women's March began to materialize "many who said they wanted to attend were also affiliated with the antiabortion movement — which has in recent years tried to emphasize its broader appeal, insisting that it attracts nonreligious people, enjoys popularity among youth and is rooted in concern for the well-being of women."
"But then the Women's March listed abortion access as one of its official demands and dropped an antiabortion group from the list of official partners. Many women who opposed abortion changed their minds about going, and others who appeared with their antiabortion signs were met with loud shouts of "my body, my choice" by other marchers," the report said.
