March4Life UK 2023 - Katherine Bennett

On Saturday, Katherine and I attended the March4Life in London along with thousands of others. This is her brilliant write up of the event:

On Saturday I failed to hide my extreme, fringe, bigoted and dangerous view that *trigger warning* killing humans is wrong. I joined a group of other like-minded extremists who believe things like drinking water is vital, feet are for walking on, men can’t give birth and you don’t need a PhD to work this stuff out.

Together we Marched for Life in London, a diverse crowd, unified by their recognition of, and commitment to, reality – including the reality that the birth canal isn’t a magical tunnel that turns a bunch of cells into a human being.

What wasn’t clear was what unified the un-boundaried fantasy of the opposing voices. At one point a voice rose up from the throng of ghouls shouting “Whadda we want?” and was met with a chilly silence, before someone mumbled something about the Tories.

After a dressing room huddle in which a Tim Burton approximation of Jose Mourinho must have said “Come on lads, we want the right to kill babies remember” a unified response finally came back “ABORTION!”. The “When do we want it?” was avoided altogether, because the ghouls already have it all.





I remember a time when I would have been standing on the other side with the ghouls. It was a time during my teens when I began to wear all black, draw satanic symbols onto my face, lurk in graveyards late at night with older men, consume things that clouded my judgement, listen to music that charmed a sense of pride. I felt powerful, untouchable, better than other people, these were the apparent goods of the ego-drama in which I lived. But I also remember, even then, a constant sense of being trapped.

I was living the horror of a life brilliantly exposed in the Joel Schumacher film The Lost Boys, an 80s vampire flick dealing with the temptation we all have to fall into a life of pride, versus the pull of a life of service for which we have all been created.

When, in the film, vampire David offers up his blood and says “Join us Michael” we glimpse the horror of that unnatural choice, it is one which will require the endless devouring of other humans. By contrast, when our saviour says, “Come follow me” and offers us his blood, we glimpse the beauty of that natural choice, it is one which will require the endless dignifying of other humans. What “The Lost Boys” got so right was the danger of plugging into the wrong blood transfusion. One will perpetually feed a sense of pride, the other will bring perpetual peace.

Abortion is, says Peter Kreeft “The antichrists demonic parody of the eucharist, that’s why it uses the same holy words “this is my body” with the blasphemous opposite meaning”

According to Urs von Balthasar we live in an ego-drama when everything we do revolves around ourselves. On the contrary, we live in a Theo-drama when everything we do revolves around God. In my experience it is authentic Christian witness that will shift people from one to the other.

The witness of those Marching together for life will touch that place in all of us that isn’t yet, and never can be, trapped. Being pro-life is about so much more than being anti-abortion. It recognises that nobody is ever a lost cause, from conception to natural death. And this includes those hostile antagonists whose lives, and the lives of their children we also march for.

And so, I marched as one who had crossed that seemingly impenetrable line; lifted out of the ego-drama and plonked into the theo-drama thanks to people whose lives were a witness to truth.

As the Marian Franciscans led us in prayer while the sun pierced the clouds above Westminster, I felt a freedom and joy that could not be disturbed by the baying mob, that could not be disturbed by accusations of bigotry. I marched with many ordinary parents and grandparents, with my children and their friends, with old people, young people, black, white and brown people, able bodied and handicapped people, I marched alongside brave high profile people prepared to put their heads above the parapet; the ever reliable Calvin Robinson, Connor Tomlinson, Bishops Keenan, Moth and Sherrington, Msgr Keith Newton, Fr Marcus Holden, Fr Paschal Uche, Fr David Howell, Fr Allan MacDonald, Caroline Farrow, Lois and Calum Miller, Alice Grant, Tim Stanley and his little pro-life dog, and numerous others I missed along the way.

Writing is a funny thing. It’s not always obvious what we hope to achieve with it, and there is always the danger that we are speaking in an echo chamber, but with this, perhaps all I want to do is to write a thank you to every brave person who took to the streets of London this weekend, as our freedom to speak is increasingly in peril, this peaceful march keeps the value of human life part of the conversation. It does make a difference. It does change hearts. We may not see it in this life, but we will know it in the next.

And to our faithful brothers and sisters from Where’s Welby – never give up hope, keep searching.