A coalition of abortion rights groups will gather in Washington on Sunday for what they are calling a “March for Women’s Lives.”It’s an odd title for a march in favor of abortion rights and contraception; after all, without abortion and contraception, there would be more women’s lives. The march is endorsed by a raft of celebrities, including, according to its organizers, Cindy Crawford, Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg, Charlize Theron, and Ted Turner. The coalition backing the march includes the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the organization formerly known as the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers are traveling to Washington for the event.

Reasonable people can, and do, differ on the issue of abortion. Opinions are often informed by private religious beliefs. Our purpose here is not to take sides on the matter of abortion rights, but to question the alarmist rhetoric and political tilt of this march’s organizers.

Planned Parenthood, for instance, is marketing the march with a satirical Internet advertisement featuring Ralph Reed, Rev. Pat Robertson, Rev. Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, and Rush Limbaugh. The idea that those men have the power to take abortion or birth control rights away from women strains credulity. Mr. Reed and Rev. Robertson couldn’t sustain the Christian Coalition as a political force, and the organization is now a shadow of its former self. Rev. Falwell is 70, and his Moral Majority group formally dissolved in 1989. Mr. Buchanan spends more time ranting against the Bush administration’s policies on trade and counter-terrorism than on abortion, so much so that the White House more than likely considers him hostile. Mr. Reed is a regional political consultant.

Meanwhile, we’ve had nearly four years of the Bush administration, during much of which both houses of Congress were controlled by the Republican Party. The reason that Planned Parenthood is wheeling out the Reverends Falwell and Robertson is that President Bush, Speaker Hastert, and Senator Frist haven’t made it a priority to wage a war on abortion rights or on birth control. Mr. Bush didn’t even mention the issue in his most recent address on the Union’s state.

That Mr. Bush and the Republicans in Congress haven’t been a serious threat to abortion rights and reproductive rights is obvious from even a cursory glance at some statistics. Chain Drug Review reports that mass market sales of contraceptives increased 2.4% in 2001, nearly mirroring the 2.3% advance the preceding year. The federal government funded Planned Parenthood of America and its affiliates to the tune of $161 million in 2001, according to the General Accounting Office of Congress. The state of New Jersey reported 32,854 abortions in 2002, up from 30,654 in 1997. The city of New York reported 91,800 abortions in 2002, down only slightly from the 95,205 reported in the city for the year 1995, during the Clinton administration.

The Food and Drug Administration is moving forward with plans to make new contraceptives available on an over-thecounter basis in America. The State Department and White House have been spending tens of millions of dollars to distribute condoms in places where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is out of control. Mr. Bush himself, in May 27, 2003, remarks on AIDS in Africa, praised “the responsible use of condoms to prevent HIV transmission.”

It is true that Mr. Bush signed a federal law outlawing partial-birth abortion. But that law was passed with the support of the American Medical Association and 17 Senate Democrats, including Senators Daschle, Leahy, and Biden. In the House, the partial birth abortion ban passed with the support of 63 Democrats, including such liberal stalwarts as Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, David Obey of Wisconsin, and William Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey.

You can bet, nonetheless, that the signs on Sunday won’t have many slogans denouncing Messrs. Daschle and Kennedy. Or thanking President Bush for his promotion of condom use. No, to hear the march organizers tell it, this is all one big, scary Republican effort to roll back women’s rights. “These are dark days for pro-choice Americans,” the Naral Web site warns, referring to “anti-choice leaders who control the White House and the Congress” and vowing, “We will not stand by silently as our rights are trampled.”

Just in time for the election year, the president of Planned Parenthood, Gloria Feldt, has published a book,”The War on Choice: The Right Wing Attack on Women’s Rights and How to Fight Back.” Ah, yes, those right-wingers Patrick Leahy and Patrick Kennedy.

It’s enough to make one ask, what war on choice? Or, is the animating spirit behind this march more about partisan politics. For if this is what the battlefield in such a war looks like after almost four years of Republican control, the abortion-rights forces shouldn’t be mourning the “dark days,” but celebrating how deeply entrenched in American politics are the rights they have fought for over the years.