Once again, the mainstream media turns a blind eye to the March for Life. Roughly 12,300 people marched down the streets of Ottawa (not to mention
4000 or so attending the Marches in other provinces,) but in the eyes of our "progressive" and "unbiased" media, none of that is newsworthy:
“We can’t cover everything,” editors grumble. Aggrieved ethnic groups cheesed off about something on the other side of the planet? Check. European animal-rights flakes moaning about baby seals in no actual danger of clubbing? Yup. Three cardigan-clad neighbours chained to a poplar they don’t want the city to cut down? We’ll send a camera crew. A good-sized town’s worth of pro-lifers on the grass of Parliament Hill? Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
At least the National Post ran a Michael Coren column earlier this week talking about the March for Life, but a quick Google turns up nary a mention from any other national secular media. The fact that the March for Life gets plenty of coverage from religious publications, blogs and websites makes its absence in mainstream media all the more glaring.
Yes, Michael Coren knew what he was talking about when he titled his column "
Shhh ... it's the March for Life. Pretend you didn't notice". His column was published before the March, and Michael was right in everything but the predicted turnout (in the end it was 12,300, not 10,000) - the mainstream media did in fact avoid covering the March for Life:
There has never been any abusive or violent behaviour from the participants — though there are occasionally obscene and provocative gestures from opponents — and numerous MPs and religious and ethnic leaders will attend. The march is also intensely reflective of the authentic Canada, unlike most other demonstrations: Conservative and Liberal, able-bodied and handicapped, black and white, Muslim, Christian and Jewish, from every region and background.
One would think this diversity would make it almost worthy of a heritage moment on the CBC or a government grant. Instead it makes the shapers of establishment opinion extraordinarily uncomfortable. As does, of course, any mention of the abortion issue. What one regularly hears from the marchers is best described as an informed incredulity. Why, they ask, is someone automatically excluded from the public square and considered extreme if they merely embrace the scientific proof that life begins at conception?
It’s a valid question. While pro-lifers are routinely dismissed as basing their arguments on religion and emotion, the position is in fact startlingly prosaic and self-evident. An unborn child has an entirely distinct DNA and unique genomic character at the point of conception. There is no other scientifically and logically based beginning to life and, contrary to popular belief, it is the other side’s arguments that are quintessentially emotional and, if not religious, certainly fundamentally ideological.
If anything, the
New Brunswick March for Life received far greater coverage.
The Daily Gleaner just couldn't overlook an event that was attended by as many as 17 MLAs, (that's almost 1 in 3 MLAs being openly pro-life). And
the CBC apparently wanted to highlight Michael Murphy's remarks, that he is not "entirely comfortable" with the regulations which force the government to fund about 40% of abortions in the province; portraying it as if Mr. Murphy weren't comfortable fulfilling his duties as the Health Minister of New Brunswick. That's the kind of coverage, the mainstream media is always glad to provide.
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