Progress on The Sanctity of Human Life

Life Is Winning in America

The March for Life sends a strong message.

By Michael R. Pence
Vice-President of the United States
National Review Online 


Today, tens of thousands of Americans have traveled to Washington, D.C., for the 45th annual March for Life. They come from all across our nation, and from every walk of life – students of every age, blue-collar workers, people of many backgrounds, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.

Yet no matter their story, today they will join hands and hearts on the National Mall, and with one voice they will call on the United States of America to rededicate itself to the most fundamental right enshrined in our Declaration of Independence – the unalienable right to life.

Thanks to their courage, and thanks to the leadership of President Donald Trump, life is winning in America again.

This year, President Trump will personally address the March for Life from the Rose Garden of the White House – something no president has ever done. It is fitting that he is the first to take such a historic step, because since the outset of this administration, we’ve taken historic action to protect the most vulnerable in our society.

In one of his very first acts in office, President Trump reinstated the Mexico City policy, to prevent American foreign aid from going to organizations that promote or perform abortions. Our administration has also broadened this policy to cover nearly $9 billion in foreign aid.

We’ve stopped U.S. funding for the United Nations Population Fund, so American taxpayers won’t have to support abortion in such countries as China.
  We’ve reversed the last administration’s policy and empowered states to defund Planned Parenthood and devote those resources to women’s-health providers. It was my great honor to cast the tie-breaking vote for this bill in the United States Senate.

And President Trump has been nominating – and will continue to nominate – strict constructionists to the federal courts at every level, men and women who will uphold the God-given liberties enshrined in our Constitution.  And today, when he speaks to the March for Life, President Trump will announce new policies to further protect life and conscience.

In short, life is winning in America again. It’s winning because of the policies of our administration, and because of the commitment and compassion of those who gather today in our nation’s capital, and in marches, meetings, and homes all across the country.

• Life is winning through the steady advance of science that illuminates when life begins. 
  
• Life is winning through the generosity of millions of adoptive families, who open their hearts and homes to children in need.
  
• Life is winning through the compassion of caregivers and volunteers at crisis-pregnancy centers and faith-based organizations who bring comfort and care to women, in cities and towns across this country.
  
• And life is winning through the quiet counsel between mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters, between friends across kitchen tables, and over coffee on college campuses, where the truth is being told, and hope is defeating despair.

When President Trump addresses the March for Life, it will mark the unprecedented progress we have made in the cause of life. Yet for all that we’ve accomplished, for all the lives that have been saved, and all the victories that have been won, the harder work still lies ahead.

We must continue to be a movement that embraces all and cares for all out of respect for the dignity and worth of every person. We must recommit ourselves to be a movement of compassion, not confrontation, of generosity, not judgment, and above all else, we must continue to be a movement of love.

This I know we’ll do – because I have faith.

I have faith in the goodness of the American people. I have faith in the president they elected. And I have that other kind of faith – the faith that moves mountains, and that, even now, stirs all across America.

And with the courage of all who march on this day, with the leadership of President Donald Trump in the White House, and with the guidance and grace of God above, I know that we will restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law – for ourselves, and our posterity.