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In her hit piece against the Pro-Life Movement Ms. Elizabeth Jahr, a senior at Marymount University in Arlington, Va., pens a missive about the perceived colossal waste of money spent by pro-lifers in our annual March on Washington, D.C. Read her article here. My response to Ms. Jahr…
Dear Ms. Jahr,
First, allow me to congratulate you on having had an article accepted for publication in a major and widely respected outlet such as the Christian Science Monitor. Such publication is always an immense source of pride and validation when one is still a student, so heartfelt congratulations!
In your article you stake out some extremely caustic assertions regarding the wisdom and prudential judgement, efficacy and vision of the leadership and membership of the Pro-Life Movement. Inasmuch as you didn’t sugarcoat your critique of us, I will pay you the sincere compliment of addressing you less as a student, and more as a peer. It would do neither the pro-life cause, nor you any justice were I to approach your assertions with kid gloves. So here goes.
On the whole, as arguments go yours was rather hackneyed. It resembeled in tone and substance the assertions that all the money spent on the U.S. space programs could have been better spent on the poor. Of course, such arguments never take into consideration all of the many derivative benefits that satellite technology has brought to developing nations, but I digress.
Your claims that the money spent on travel to the Annual March on Washington could be better spent by serving the actual needs of women in crisis pregnancies is so far beyond the pale that you should blush for having said so. Certainly in your scholarly research for the article you looked at the 3,000+ pregnancy centers in this nation whose daily work includes getting housing, prenatal care, delivery services, food, clothing, diapers, supplies, employment, etc for women in crisis pregnancies.
In the ’80’s I worked for five years with homeless teen mothers at Covenant House in Times Square, NY doing just that. It was there that I met my friend, Chris Bell, who was so appalled that most girls in crisis pregnancies gave their babies up for adoption (for want of life skills training and the resources to keep their children) that he began Good Counsel Homes. At Good Counsel Homes, women may stay for the duration of their pregnancy, and for a year afterward. During that time they take daily life skills training in money management, nutrition, cooking, and every aspect of managing a home, as well as parenting classes and finishing a GED or Community College.
After their stay at Good Counsel, they enter into the Exodus program where their mentor visits their home twice monthly for two years to assure that their growth is secure. Chris runs five of close to five hundred such homes in the U.S. It costs some $600,000 annually per house. Were you aware of the scope of maternity homes and pregnancy centers? In your political science studies, had you been made aware of the efforts afoot in New York City to shut down the pregnancy centers here, and how their fate hangs in the balance in the Court of Appeals? It takes money to fight those battles.
It takes money to keep the maternity homes and pregnancy centers open. Millions and millions of dollars are needed.
The March each year continues to grow, and with that growth comes the great entusiasm, the great fervor that drives the raising of far more money than is spent on the March. Beyond that utilitarian analysis there is something more fundamental that you missed in your hit piece.
Published so close to the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington and “I have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, your article misses the fact that sometimes it just doesn’t matter the cost of calling attention to fundamental injustice and inhumanity. There have been some 57 million babies slaughtered in my lifetime in this country. You would have 600,000 marchers stay home? Really?
You also fail as a political scientist to acknowledge the amount of U.S. taxpayer dollars that already go to supporting women, children and families. Allow me, then, to link to some government data that dwarfs the few million pro-life dollars you place such a premium on.
The tens of millions of dollars donated to pro-life activities is given over and above the trillions of dollars spent annually by the government with the confiscatory taxes taken from pro-lifers and pro-aborts alike.
The first data table comes from the U.S. Department of Agricultire. Expenditures are in $Millions. So take the totals and multiply by $ 1,000,000. I’ll summarize Fiscal Year 2012 here.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program $78.445 Billion
National School Lunch Program $11.578 Billion
School Breakfast Program $3.277 Billion
Special Milk Program $12 Million
Child/Adult Care Food Program $2.855 Billion
Summer Food Service Program $398 Million
Child Nutrition State Administration $203 Million
WIC (Women Infants and Children Supplemental Food) $6.799 Billion
Commodity Supplemental Food $209 Million
Food Distribution on Indian Reservations $97 Million
TEFAP (Emergency Food Assistance) $444 Million
Grand Total: $104.3 BILLION
Then, according to USDA, we spent $78.445 Billion on Food Stamps in 2012.
If that seems like impressive numbers, your weak and anemic argument collapses under the weight of the following numbers whose source is linked here. Based on Fiscal Year 2012, the U.S. Government (not including state and local expenditures) is spending the following:
Welfare $405 Billion (Including $54 Billion for housing and $107 Billion for families and children).
Education $118 Billion
Healthcare $920 Billion
The pregnancy centers never, EVER, turn a woman away and use their funding to help plug women in crisis into these government sources of assistance. So your argument that somehow babies are not being saved for want of resources falls flat. In truth, Planned Parenthhod receives over a third of a billion dollars annually from the Federal Government to keep them afloat. Would that Planned Parenthood did the counseling with that money that pregnancy centers do daily.
No, Ms. Jahr. the issue is not whether we all need to stay home and shut up in January. The issue is not that women are being turned away at pregnancy centers for want of funding. The issue is that our marching has not yet effected the change in law that King’s marching accomplished. But then, it took hundreds of years to end slavery, and over 80 more to end segregation. At age 40, the pro-life movement is only in its adolescence.
The movement is much larger than you might know, very diverse, and quite sophisticated. All on just tens of millions of dollars annually. More marchers attract even more marchers and more money for these groups. I’d be happy to introduce you to several leaders at the national level if you’re truly interested in learning more.
There is no more consequential issue or movement in our time, and your article has placed you on the wrong side of history. We already spend more than enough in tax money to aid women in crisis. We need more centers to reach more women, and fewer abortion clinics to prey on them.
I’m looking forward to your critique of Planned Parenthood and how they spend a billion dollars annually with regard to women in crisis. With so much more money in play, your analysis and proposals should be rather lengthy.
Coming Home 
I’m pro choice. Normally I have no time for pro lifers. But one of the reasons I don’t is precisely because of what the writer of this well written article points out. Why is it that 73% of women terminate their pregnancies because of the awful cost of raising a child alone? Charitable housing here and there clearly has made exactly zero difference. Many pro lifers belong to a political bloc that would tear away what social safety nets exist, as threadbare as they are: food stamps etc.
All credit to you for being involved with charity. But charity will never overcome institutional poverty. Only social change will do that.
There are models in place for this. Germany, where I live, is a good case in point. Women who have unexpected pregnancies are assured of world class health care at no cost to them. Of decent housing. Of university studies that can proceed without landing the family with excessive debt. Of doors to opportunity that stay open. Of maternity leave. They also get access to contraception and sex education, so having children is a real choice. They don’t have to work three jobs to ensure their baby gets fed.
But this kind of model stands in absolute opposition to what many pro lifers actually want.
Abortion’s not a good thing. But the answer to it is to value mothers and babies, and to offer women lots of opportunity – the best contraceptive ever devised.
Excellent piece, Gerard! It would be interesting to discover how Ms. Jahr funds her education. Perhaps, like Sandra Fluke, she relies on the generosity of tax payers?
I love this!
I do, however, find it sad that Chris Bell, who has done amazing things helping women with crisis pregnancies (bravo to him!), found motivation to start his charity based on his being so “appalled that most girls in crisis pregnancies gave their babies up for adoption (for want of life skills training and the resources to keep their children)” Perhaps I am just reading this incorrectly. I think it was brave and amazing and mature for these girls to choose life for their babies and thought enough about them to plan a better life for them. Because I’m a birth mother, my sensitivities towards the subject of adoption are a bit heightened – I apologize if I’ve misinterpreted anything. I also realize that the point of your blog post was not about Chris Bell but about how he and other pro-lifers are committed to helping save lives.
Bravo, Dr. Nadal. Bravo. I truly hope she reads this.
The first such recorded objection was Judas and the beat goes on against the Church and Jesus’ Body the Church as well as money “wasted” on art and the arts. Excellent article Dr Nadal. I wonder why the CSM published her.
Dear Dr. Nadal:
Thank-you for this wonderfully cogent, and articulate expression of truth. It is difficult to reply, point by point, to such arguments as Ms. Jahr makes–the art of argument has become “if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with b.s.” but you have cut through the bull and stripped the straw man of his false cloth. The most disturbing point of Ms. Jahr’s argument–is its underlying tenet that procreation is a trifle, and where it is the unintended consequence of some corporeal whim, it is better to destroy the life, than rise to the responsibility of caring for it. This lays bare the rotten hollowed out shell of our culture, and the creeping depravity that masquerades as social welfare.
I’ll be sharing your post with readers of my own blog. You make the case against Ms. Jahr’s assertions far better than I. Thanks for your work.
Reblogged this on Leaven for the Loaf and commented:
This is too good to bury in this week’s upcoming Pick of the Web. From Dr. Gerard M. Nadal’s blog Coming Home: Science in the Service of the Pro-Life movement comes his reply to recent high-profile criticism of the March for Life.
Pure awesomeness.
Perfect! Thank you so much.
You were very, very kind to Ms. Jahr. I thought her content was the much overworked shibboleth that money could be better spent on [you fill in the blank]. I suspect this was a term paper gone viral when a professor who knew someone at the CSM was floored by the wonderfully innovative angle attacking the March for Life as a money-waster!
What disturbs me is the apparent poverty of her Catholic education. Does she know anything about the failure of the War on Poverty back in the 60s. Does she know how the Church speaks to the problem of suffering in this world. Has her education been shaped more by women’s reproductive rights arguments that saturate the culture rather than understanding the history and politics of population control movement. Can she even cite sources other than the ones approved by the secular, pro-abortion media.
Finally, I think it is a real stretch to compute the average cost of going to the March for Life as $320. Way too much, I think. She should know, she only had to travel from Arlington.
Of course the slave owners wanted all the abolitionists to go away too. We pro lifers are such a nuisance to those who profit from killing unborn children. The darkness hates the light.
Bodycrimes, the best contraceptive is a woman saying, “No,” to sex. Stops STDs, too. But the media, society, et al never ask the best of women or men, i.e., self-control. The message is always,”Do what makes you happy,” not do the responsible thing. Contraceptives do fail. There is no such thing as sex w/o consequences. You want to be 100% responsible? Learn self-control and denial. Such are counter-cultural, but they work.
@ California Yankees. Leaving aside moralising, the reality is there are a lot of unwanted pregnancies out there and the finger wagging is kind of bolting the door after the horse has bolted. How then do you ensure that a woman and her child will not be plunged into a cycle of poverty and lost opportunities? Or doesn’t this matter?
To those who advocate killing people to eliminate poverty, there is a much more efficient way to do this, just stand outside any welfare office and pick them off, sniper, poison, abortion, whatever your lethal preference. The pro life movement is made up of people who believe we are all children of God and therefore we have incalculable worth, so we pour money, time, effort and prayers into reaching women and babies who are at risk. The March for Life unifies, educates and empowers us to do battle with the evil that exists in our nation: the government sanctioned slaughter of the innocent, men treating women and their unborn babies like disposable inconveniences, the grief, pain and suffering that men and women live with following the violent death of their unborn child.
Oh, and by the way, one other thing the pro life movement does is teach women that they can avoid unwanted pregnancies by practicing sexual integrity, a concept alien to many these days.
@ Barbara. Sure. It’s taken as a given that the pro life side rejects abortion on economic grounds. That’s not the question. The question is: if 73% of women are choosing abortions specifically because they can’t see a way to raise them, then what is the pro life side doing about to make society more mother and child friendly and stop them falling into poverty? Apart from helping out with charity during the pregnancy itself. Helping to fight for the long term well being of women might bring that level down.
All people of good faith are working to make their community and their world a better place. The pro life movement does a lot of heavy lifting but it will take all of us lifting together to wipe out poverty. Abortion does not eliminate poverty,
Her argument in a nutshell is, “pro-lifers are hypocrites,” which is exactly what pro-choicers have been saying all these years. I found it sad that this is a Catholic girl who is majoring in religious studies. If this is what she thinks will motivate pro-lifers to “do it better,” she may be surprised to find that this kind of negative motivation doesn’t work very well. At least it doesn’t for me. But if what is disguised as negative motivation is really just shilling for the pro-choice side then this is a thoroughly repugnant piece. Let’s just err on the side of caution and chalk it up to youth and lack of experience.
To bodycrimes. Maybe look in your local phone book…maybe also call local churches and ask “Where could a pregnant woman get help?”. I would be very surprised if you did not get various referrals. There is a lot of life going on…including help to women in crisis…which does not make it into the regular media stream or into college/universities…or into the regular news.
And…as the article writer notes, there are gov.resources. I was helping a mother in 2011. She qualified for a couple thousand dollars in college aid, and for some other aid as well. She already had food stamps.
What are you doing…to help young women in crisis pregnancies?
That might be a way to refocus your passion. If you are at a college, does your college offer free (or subsidized) daycare for moms going to school? That might be a place to start.
Further note to “bodycrimes”. I was referring to the US in my above email.
bodycrimes,
What are women doing to stop from falling into poverty? It is a fact that fornication often leads to pregnancy, disease and emotional trauma which in turn lead to trillions in debt to the rest of us. I for one am tired of supporting fornicators. I would much rather spend my hard earned dollars celebrating women who wait for love. It is time to stop rewarding evil. The child is innocent. It is the parents who should pay the very heavy price of taking care of the child they created themselves no matter what the cost. Let the trillions flow to those chaste brides who strengthen families, societies and nations.!
I know a beautiful young woman who never cost the government anything. She always worked hard in school, worked a part time job in high school, got a scholarship to college, worked during college, went to medical school, and ate ramon noodles the whole time. I think this girl deserves a beautiful wedding and a magnificent honeymoon and start in raising her family. I would like to see her receive about $50,000. for her wedding, and $50,000 for her first house down payment as our gift for contributing to society. Who’s with me?
Isabelle 101…people like the woman you described do not need nor want a government handout. Bodycrimes seems to suggest that people are heartless who they do not support all the mind numbing government handout programs that have corrupted our society. A truly charitable heart supports what elevates people and brings them closer to God, abortion degrades and dehumanizes people.
Abortion does degrade and dehumanize people. The Sexual Revolution has left so many casualties, on so many levels. Even in Germany…I know, I lived there for some time.
You can always say no to inappropriate sexual encounters. That is one of the best ways to protect your mental health, physical health, and your economic future.
Barbara,
“A truly charitable heart supports what elevates people and brings them closer to God, abortion degrades and dehumanizes people.”
Charity (in the Catholic Sense) is to suffer with or in place of another. Abortion doesn’t just degrade and dehumanize people, it kills them. To be charitable, one would have to suffer with or in the place of the unborn child who is targeted for abortion.
The problem is that children are being sexualized and believing that there are no consequences to fornication. We are way too late by the time a pregnancy, syphilis, AIDS or cervical cancer has taken root. Charity has to begin with the truth. After that, there is really little or no hope unless like I said, we are willing to be Charitable.
Look at the above so called “charitable contributions”. All that money has done nothing to stem the tide of fornication. In fact, it has increased. I just think it might be better to reward women who respect themselves, their bodies and their lives. They might become the new trend and we might see an improvement in the enslavement of girls and women to a culture of filth.
A well-written post Dr. Nadal, as usual, followed by the usual mind-numbing cackling from the egg-laying masses. There is one exception to the usual din this time, however: Bodycrimes, who makes at least a provocative point. (Of course, her point could have been made just as easily without the snide inuendo.) Far be it for me to say anything about unwanted pregnancy, never having had or produced one; but simply saying “no” to sex ain’t enough. Once the deed has been done, Bodycrimes is correct to note that in a world of legalized choice, it can only help the cause to create the most favorable environment to raise that child. Indeed, Bondycrimes is, I believe, keeping at least one eye on the fetus, where it belongs. Hence, I would suggest that we listen to her more carefully and, as she suggested, dispense with the finger-wagging. As Confucius said:
“I am not bothered by the fact that I am not understood. I am bothered when I do not know others.”
@pt-19 Thank you. I am pro choice but would prefer to see Clinton’s ‘safe, rare and legal’. So I ask Barbara and the others – you are assuming that all abortions result from some kind of sexual transgression that you, personally, disapprove of. What are you going to offer the married woman in a stable, loving relationship who believes she has no option but an abortion, because her family will face serious economic distress if they bring another baby into it? This is a VERY common reason for abortion. Or the married woman who has been told, for the sake of her own health, not to have any more children but finds the contraception has failed?
Ask anyone who has volunteered in a crisis pregnancy center and they will tell you the primary reason that women seek abortion is abandonment. They feel alone, abandoned by the father of the child, often abandond by their own family. When the father of the child, or the father of the pregnant woman, stands up to lend support for the pregnancy, in most cases the pregnancy continues to term. The father has a moral obligation to defend and protect the life of his own child. If we could resolve just this one barrier, many more children and women would be spared. So if you think that is moralizing, so sorry, but it is a fact that casual sex between uncommitted partners results in disposable babies. In many cases this has nothing to do with poverty.
Behind every woman and child in poverty is a man that put her there.
@barbara – that may only be representative of the women who show up at crisis pregnancy centres. According to the Guttmacher Institute, up to 17% of women seeking abortions in the US are married. In other countries, that rate is even higher. Sorry, the constant harping on sexual purity has done nothing to bring down the abortion rate, either in the recent past or in the distant past. There are 47,000 maternal deaths a year from unsafe abortions, clustered in countries that stigmatise sex outside of marriage.
Why can’t married women hold the father’s of their children accountable? Why are they so cowardly that they kill their own children to cover for their marital acts?
You reap what you sow. Women are now becoming disposable objects as well. In India tens of thousands of women are trafficked as sex slaves then killed when no longer usable. This trend is spreading around the globe and I believe it is because women have failed to confront the violence of sexual perversion,contraception and abortion which are all contrary to their nature. If the trend continues, there will be less abortions simply because there will be less woman to have them. Oh well.
@bodycrimes you’re too talented a writer and thinker for your detractors here; they’re not listening, and probably never will. however, you also have the smarts and insight to know better than to hang all of your hats on the feminism hat-rack. there must be individual responsibility first and foremost, and respect for human life. societal programs can never work without, at least, that. As Newt Gingrich said:
“If ‘society’ is responsible for everything, then no one is personally responsible for anything….”
pt. You are right. Hopefully we will never give an ear to those who advocate the murder of innocent and defenseless among us for any reason whatsoever. Thank you for your input.
A faithful pro life friend of mine has spent most of her life trying to show and teach people about the humanity of the unborn child, thinking that this would persuade people to treat the child in the womb with the same dignity and worth that we give to children already born. She has been sadly disturbed to find that even though the humanity of the child in the womb has been revealed through technology such as 3D ultrasound, many are indifferent and the brutality of abortion continues. When asked about this, she replied that she is convinced if murder became legal, we would all start killing each other. Perhaps she is right.
[…] Coming Home, Dr. Gerard Nadal pens an open letter to Elizabeth Jahr for her criticism of the pro-life […]
Wow! Dr. Nadal-I couldn’t even finish your article when you began to liken private and federally funded programs (NASA? Really??) to money spent on a march. I never saw anything in her article that suggested she was pro choice. I found her article looking to the future, not delving into the past. To your point! The money on the march could be better spent at Chris’ house improving outcomes. And the rest of the comments are ridiculous extrapolations, snide and immature. These are thoughts from an educated young woman attending a catholic university who writes interesting and well thought out articles that make their way to the CMS. Perhaps the old Catholics should listen to what the younger Catholics, our future leaders, are thinking.
@Bodycrimes: I am both proudly pro-Life AND a huge Advocate for a stronger social safety net. I think You do not realize just how many of Us there are. You would do well to research such before posting such comments.
@Brian. I’m so glad to hear that there really are some of you. Because the pro lifers who actually want to help women and family are being drowned out by the moralisers who think that poor women should just keep their legs shut and if they don’t, too damn bad. (See comments above.)
“The question is: if 73% of women are choosing abortions specifically because they can’t see a way to raise them, then what is the pro life side doing about to make society more mother and child friendly and stop them falling into poverty?”
Well I think we can throw this right back at you “bodycrimes”. If pro choice advocates are truly about choice what are they offering women? Cuz all I see are more contraceptives thrown at them, and abortions to kill their children and damage their health and psyche.
What I see among prolifers are couples who adopt severely disabled children, teachers who tell the truth about the damage of contraception, sex outside of marriage, people who run pregnancy centers for women who need help during pregnancy. Every year these groups receive little funding because the government doesn’t support the prolife position. There’s no getting around that abortion is a big national business that brings in plenty of money on the backs of women who are often coerced into abortion. Stop funding Planned Parenthood. Put that money into social initiatives that help women carry their pregnancy to term, provide them with decent health care and encourage some of these moms to consider adoption – which has been bad-mouthed by the prochoicers for years as a fate worse than abortion.
“…poor women should just keep their legs shut and if they don’t, too damn bad.” Yes, characterize the opposition as heartless zoo-keepers; makes you look much better than them! How benevolent you sound, body crimes. How loving, giving, humane, and serious. Only one thing: you’re missing the point. Journalism at its best does more than mock the other point of view, it enlightens it. Perhaps I gave you too much credit before. You can give until both your heart and wallet fuse into a liquid puddle of love, without personal responsibility you will have achieved nothing good for anyone, only more intractable heartache. Wise up! <– this is from a fan of yours, so don't take to personally.
pt-109 – robust argument is a good thing, particularly about serious life and death matters. But… if you think I’m being snide, I simply point you to the comments made above. I could probably make better pro life arguments than the ones I see. How about people talking about the commodification of life, where children are positioned as just another consumer choice? How about discussing the economic realities that make women despair of keeping their babies? But these are complex discussions.
I’m sorry, I speak as I find. I have seen a few thoughtful pro life discussions here and there, but mostly they’re crackpot arguments about wicked, immoral people refusing to be as chaste as some religious person demands they should be, and how the woman has to bear the consequences, as much to punish her as out of any concern for “the babies”.
@Bodycrimes: I guess My point, which I admit I had not made entirely clear, is the fact it betrays Our more liberal (yes, I wear that label with pride too) philosophy to paint Others with a broad brush and I think One would have to be quite ignorant to think the loudest voices of any group represent the group as a whole.
bodycrimes: “How about people talking about the commodification of life, where children are positioned as just another consumer choice?” Wow, bodycrimes, you’ve just provided a great argument against abortion! In that one flip question, you suggest the evil inherent in an abortion based on lack of societal largesse! Now I have a question back at you: did you suddenly have a chance of heart and mind, or are you a daffy girl who can’t write after all?
“Goodbye. Don’t think it hasn’t been a little slice of Heaven…. ’cause it hasn’t!”
–Bugs Bunny
It wasn’t a ‘flip’ question. Do you think that all pro choicers believe that abortion is an easy choice that never has any ethical considerations?
Dr. Nadal this a beautiful piece, congratulations on your work. As someone who works with Chris Bell, I must correct one aspect of your writing. “…Chris Bell, who was so appalled that most girls in crisis pregnancies gave their babies up for adoption (for want of life skills training and the resources to keep their children) that he began Good Counsel Homes.” It is quite the opposite. He saw, while working with run-away kids in Times Square that 96% or more were going to parent their own children alone.
Having seen that most single woman were going to parent on their own Chris saw very few to NO resources helping single mothers long term. He believed God was asking him to help woman post labor, long term. It was through this desire in his heart that came about Good Counsel Homes and Lumina Post Abortion Healing.
bodycrimes, at least you’re last question wasn’t flip, but it is “loaded,” so much so that it appears flip. For example, of course, I don’t believe ALL pro choicers believe anything, or that anything NEVER has any ethical considerations. You asked a question that has to be answered this way, thus it is not a useful question, madam journalist. I’ve personally never been involved in an abortion. To maintain respect and rights of both mother and fetus, I find my own beliefs and considerations exist to a great extent in the “grey” areas. On any particular issue we may agree or disagree, but we’ll never know if you can’t express yourself clearly. Ask a good question if you want a good answer. Or, perhaps stick to writing on your own blog where you may blither and blather all you want.
bodycrimes:
“Charitable housing here and there clearly has made exactly zero difference.”
This is an alarming comment. If you want to look at this in terms of pure numbers, maybe, but that’s not how it actually works. I’m reminded of the story about the boy at the beach throwing starfish back in the water — “It made a difference to THAT one.”
“@barbara – that may only be representative of the women who show up at crisis pregnancy centres. According to the Guttmacher Institute, up to 17% of women seeking abortions in the US are married.”
Actually, I would not be surprised if that comports with my own experience with a CPC. While 17% isn’t nothing, you’d have a more impressive and compelling point if it was anywhere close to a majority. As it is, that means marrieds are outnumbered almost five to one. I’ll tell what I can without revealing anything identifying: a handful of ours are married. Most are single with no support from the father. I have to agree with Barbara.
Jean:
“The money on the march could be better spent at Chris’ house improving outcomes.”
You’d have to weigh that against potential donors who might have no idea there are such places except because of the publicity from this and local marches. That could be hard to assess, to be honest.
Our state capitol has a gold dome and the legislative offices a magnificent marble foyer. Living just blocks from it are people who can’t afford food, so you’d think it would be an easy target, yet I’ve never heard anybody suggest we sell it to fill our deficits or feed our poor…I think that shows how absurd and disingenuous these arguments are. It’s not zero-sum…the people likely to go to the march are the most likely to be giving generously of either their time or money already. The more pressing need is to get visibility.