Today we march for life to defend the weakest and most vulnerable from deadly assault.
Tragically, since the infamous 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decisions that eviscerated legal protection for unborn children, more than 61 million babies have been dismembered or chemically aborted—a death toll that equates with the entire population of Italy.
Someday, future generations will look back on us and wonder how and why such a seemingly enlightened society, so blessed and endowed with education, advanced science, information, wealth and opportunity could have systematically enabled the death of millions of children.
Under President Obama, abortion was aggressively promoted at home and overseas in our foreign aid programs. Even longstanding bipartisan conscience protection laws were shamelessly not enforced.
Now the Trump Administration is robustly enforcing America’s conscience laws, including the Weldon Amendment, to ensure that no health care professional and no organization or entity is forced or coerced into paying for or participating in the killing of an unborn child.
In just three years, several executive orders and actions have been promulgated by the Trump Administration to protect life—includingTitle X reform and the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA)—and the courts appear to be seriously trending in the right direction.
Unborn babies are society’s youngest patients.
Today it is commonplace for doctors to diagnose and treat a myriad of illnesses and disabilities before birth, substantially improving outcomes in the life of a child.
With the help of ultrasound imaging—pro-life advocates have tirelessly struggled to ensure that unborn children are no longer invisible, trivialized, mocked, dehumanized, and killed.
An ultrasound is a window to the womb and the child who resides there.
An ultrasound helps to underscore the fact that birth is merely an event—albeit an important one—in the breathtaking continuum that spans a lifetime.
So many Americans today proudly share first baby photos not taken at birth but from ultrasound scans of the child.
Several pro-abortion legislative assaults on life, including overturning public funding bans on abortion, were stopped in the last month by the skill, determination, and commitment of pro-life lawmakers backed by the ironclad promise of a presidential veto.
We’re making progress. Be encouraged—I say again, be encouraged.
Above all, to the marchers I say thanks to each of you for traveling to Washington and for your tremendous defense of the weakest and most vulnerable throughout the year.
It could—and would—be unimaginably worse without you.
Because of you, countless women and babies have been spared the violence of abortion and today live, love and thrive.
Because of you, many women who have had abortions now know there is only love and respect and deep concern for them in our hearts—and a willingness to assist.
We all have a critical role to play.
Because reestablishing the right to life regardless of sex, age, disability or condition of dependency is the human rights issue of our time.
So, with faith in God, indomitable hope and charity for all, we recommit today to defending human life—no matter the sacrifice, no matter the cost.