As we prepare to receive Christ anew this Christmas I want to wish you and your families a beautiful, grace filled holy season!

This is the time of year that we particularly treasure our family, friends, and loved ones. It’s the time of year that we celebrate the ultimate gift of love that came to us in the form of a tiny baby in a manger.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5

Love truly does save lives.

We are excited to reflect more upon this truth, our 2018 theme, in the coming weeks and months.

Do you have a personal pro-life story that reflects “Love Saves Lives”?

If you’d like to share your story so that it might encourage and inspire others, you can submit it on the March for Life website HERE.

>>>> Read Shelley’s story, “I Was An Unplanned Pregnancy.”

To continue to change our culture for life, we must communicate and live out this truth of life-saving love, and the spirit of the Christmas season, each and every day.

Thank you for all of your sacrifices for life. Have a blessed Christmas!

One year ago today, March for Life Action launched its ground-breaking and award-winning television and digital ad, “Consensus”.

The video draws on Marist polling (the polling company used by Wall Street Journal, McClatchy and NBC News) that shows that there is a strong pro-life consensus in our country. Americans want abortion to have real legal limits.

In fact, did you know that 8 in 10 Americans believe that abortion should be limited – at most – to the first three months of pregnancy?

Even six out of 10 pro-choice Americans agree that abortion should happen only during the first three months of pregnancy, at most. Yet most pro-choice politicians support the extreme position that abortion should be legal right up until birth – and they want you, as a taxpayer, to pay for it!

However, the tide has turned and pro-life politicians now hold the majority in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, and President Donald Trump campaigned on pro-life policies, including defunding Planned Parenthood.

Almost 2/3rds of Americans oppose tax dollars paying for abortion. Now is the time to end abortion extremism and redirect Planned Parenthood’s government funds to federally qualified health care centers that outnumber the country’s largest abortion providers by 20 to 1.

In addition to the polling data, there are many factors across our culture that indicate that life is winning in America.

Yesterday, pro-life scholar, Chuck Donovan of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, and I sat down for a discussion of these cultural indicators. You can watch the full video here:

As Congress is set to take up the Graham-Cassidy healthcare legislation next week which would defund Planned Parenthood while defending pro-life principles, your voice is needed to contact your lawmakers for the cause of life and urge them to vote in favor of redirecting Planned Parenthood’s funding to life-affirming healthcare.

Planned Parenthood, our nation’s largest abortion provider, commits over 328,000 abortions each year. The Congressional Select Investigative Panel that looked into Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of baby body parts ultimately made 15 criminal and regulatory referrals of tissue procurement, and the Senate Judiciary Committee made 7 criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.

Furthermore, Planned Parenthood receives hundreds of millions in private donations. The truth is that they can fund themselves.

Now more than ever, the unified voice of America’s pro-life consensus must be heard.

It’s time for Congress to fulfill their promise by redirecting federal funding from abortion providers towards life-affirming, federally-qualified health centers. It’s long past time to end the extremism of funding abortion-giant Planned Parenthood with our federal tax dollars.

>>>> Send a message to your representatives today that any delay in defunding Planned Parenthood is unacceptable.

UPDATE (September 25, 2017): Congratulations Maddi on the birth of your precious son, Greyson!

Today we had the honor of hosting Maddi Runkles at our office for a Facebook Live conversation. During Maddi’s senior year of high school, this past year, she found herself facing an unexpected pregnancy, and in the midst of very challenging circumstances, she chose life.

We’re so grateful that she did, and she is expecting a baby boy in early September! We want to celebrate and honor her decision.

Watch the full conversation here:

As a concluding question, I asked Maddi, what advice she might have for someone watching who is also facing an unexpected pregnancy. Here is her inspiring response:

“It’s super cliche, but you can do it; it is worth it. Making the right choice is not always the easiest thing to do, but in the long run, it’s the best thing you can do.”

This is a very intimate and vulnerable topic, and we’re grateful for Maddi’s willingness to share. We want to reiterate her message of hope. Also, if anyone reading or watching this is facing an unexpected pregnancy, we would like to encourage you. There are many resources available and you can begin with checking out OptionLine.org.

Choosing life is empowering, and we hope you have seen how Maddi so beautifully embodies this.

So #blessed to have Maddi Runkles @March_for_Life today pic.twitter.com/9b2oPeMMgM

— Jeanne F. Mancini (@jeannemfl) July 10, 2017

One week after the Inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, pro-life America marched in our nation’s capital to remember the 58 million Americans lost to abortion since 1973, and to continue the effort to build a culture of life in this country!

The White House showed unprecedented support for the March for Life by sending Kellyanne Conway, senior counselor to the President, and longtime pro-life hero, Vice President Mike Pence – the highest-ranking White House official ever to address the March for Life!

With this enthusiasm, the 44th March for Life was one of the most powerful and impactful marches ever, further solidifying our commitment to ending abortion in our lifetime.

>>>> Watch a recap of the March for Life with the remarks of Vice President Pence: 

Since the March for Life in January, participants, and supporters across the country have continued to build a culture of life by advocating for pro-life policies under the new Congress and Administration.

Thank you for making your voice heard!

It is hard to believe that we are now at the “100 Day” mark for the new Administration. In a short period of time, we’ve seen many positive pro-life policy decisions. The Obama Administration is considered to be the most pro-abortion presidency ever, possibly only to have been outdone by presidential candidate and abortion champion Hillary Clinton had she won in November. (Clinton is set to receive Planned Parenthood’s “champion of the century” award next week.)

We are grateful for the pro-life policy decisions in the first 100 Days, including:

• Unprecedented support for the 2017 March for Life, sending the Vice President to speak to marchers;
• Strong pro-life appointments to key leadership roles including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, HHS Secretary Tom Price, and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley;
• Reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, prohibiting U.S. funding of abortion providers overseas;
• Defunding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), a participant in China’s one-child policy;
• Enactment of the Congressional Review Act (H.J. Res 43) to allow individual states the ability to redirect Title X funding away from abortion providers like Planned Parenthood;
• Nomination and confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.

>>>> Watch Jeanne Mancini recap the Trump Administration’s first 100 days:

The pro-abortion lobby is reeling from the election losses in November and the enactment of pro-life policies. They protested the nomination of Neil Gorsuch, despite his impeccable education, experience, and previous bipartisan support. With reports of a possible Supreme Court Justice retirement later this year, we can be sure to expect an intense battle like we haven’t previously witnessed.

At the March for Life, we are working tirelessly for pro-life policies — like preventing tax dollars from pouring into Planned Parenthood — and continuing to strive to build a culture of life year-round.

It has been quite a busy 100 days, for the new Administration and the March for Life! Changing our culture and our laws for life is a year-round effort and we are honored to partner with you in this life-saving work.

One year ago today, we lost a man who was a wonderful husband, father, person of faith, intellect and perhaps most known as a wonderful Supreme Court Justice, the late Antonin Scalia.

I will never forget receiving the text from a friend with the news of Justice Scalia’s untimely death. It was late on a Saturday and my husband and I were hosting a group of friends for dinner that evening.  It was hard to focus after learning of his passing. After dinner, we all talked about what his death meant for our country. We prayed for the future of our beloved USA.

A few days later, my parents and I would pay our respects to Justice Scalia as he laid in state at the Supreme Court. We waited for hours in the cold to pray in front of his casket. We were not alone in our desire to honor him; I was surprised to see so many millennials waiting in line and later read that they needed to extend the hours of the viewing well past midnight so that everyone could pass by Justice Scalia as he laid in state.

His funeral was a ticketed event since so many wanted to attend. My husband and I listened to the funeral homily online given by Justice Scalia’s son, the gifted Fr. Paul Scalia. The sermon was without a doubt one of the best and most moving homilies I have ever heard preached. I can recite portions of it from memory.

Justice Scalia was admired not only by our nation, but also by his colleagues. He often shared, “My best buddy on the court is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has always been.” During this time when our nation is so polarized and respectful dialogue and debate are lacking, the deep friendship of these two ideological opposites on the Supreme Court is an example for us all.

Justice Scalia was an intellectual giant, committed to the country and to our great Constitution. He understood that it was not the role of the courts to write the laws, or create new constitutional rights out of judicial activism (as they did with Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton). He reflected on the role of the legislature versus the courts. “Persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and pass a law. That’s what democracy is all about. It’s not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.”

I also deeply respect Justice Scalia’s perspective on family and faith. He once light-heartedly remarked about his large family, “Well, we didn’t set out to have nine children. We’re just old-fashioned Catholics, you know.”

On this anniversary of his death, we remember the great Justice Scalia and reflect upon his invaluable contributions to our nation. We also reflect upon the many developments in our country in the year since his passing. I am profoundly grateful that one such development is the recent nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, a judge who is very much of the same mold as Justice Antonin Scalia. May we all work together to get Judge Gorsuch confirmed.

Thank you. From the bottom of our hearts, we want to thank each and every one of you who marched for life on Friday in our nation’s capital, as well as those of you who were watching and supporting us from afar.

Year after year, every January – we travel across this great nation to give a voice to those who don’t have one – the unborn. We’re here in blizzards, subzero temperatures, sleet, snow and rain – and we are here because we know that abortion is the greatest human rights abuse of our time.

The 2017 March for Life was truly historic including an in-person speaking appearance by Vice President Mike Pence, and Counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway.

The joyful, loving, peaceful witness of tens of thousands of America’s pro-life youth from across the country spoke to the hearts and minds of those in attendance and watching on screen.

Enjoy and share these incredible pictures from the 2017 March for Life. (Click the images below to see more!)

New technology allowed the March for Life rally to be streamed on Facebook, resulting in our message of life and love going “viral” with nearly 2 million views and over 33,000 shares.

You can watch and share the full rally footage from Friday, filled with a powerful lineup of inspiring speakers, below.

Now we begin the hard work of turning our passion and inspiration at the March for Life into year-round, every-day advocacy work to change our culture and our laws for the cause of life.

Will you join us?

We are honored and humbled by your witness for life at the 44th Annual March for Life. Throughout this week, we’ll update you with media coverage, and social media coverage – our voices were heard loud and clear this year!

Thank you!

On behalf of the March for Life Board of Directors and staff, I’d like to wish you and your family a safe and blessed Thanksgiving!

We are grateful for the work that each of you does for the pro-life cause. Together, we will one day soon see a culture of life flourish in our country so that every child is welcomed and loved.

From all of us at the March for Life, thank you for working with us and Happy Thanksgiving! 

Yesterday as I was leaving work, a young, African-American man stopped me and asked if I was “for” women’s rights. I can assume that if I said yes he would have asked me to sign a petition he was advocating.  Because I was in a hurry, I typically would have continued on my way without engaging him. However, because I have heard the term “women’s rights” at least five times in the course of the past week, and frankly, my patience is waning in the face of the onslaught of false rhetoric surrounding this election cycle, I couldn’t help but stop and chat.

I asked him, “What exactly are you referring to when you say “women’s rights”; what “rights” are we talking about?” He answered, ironically, given that I am a woman and he is not, “reproductive rights.” Saddened and burdened by this response, I asked him “what about equal rights for unborn women?” He obviously had not given that any thought because he didn’t know how to respond. After about twenty seconds he asked me, “is this a trick question?” I told him no and that I hoped he would really think about the point I had made.

If I had the chance to speak with this gentleman again I would have gently added that pushing reproductive rights is on the wrong side of history.  Humans should not be discriminated against because of their size, sex, color, race, disability, etc.

I love everything related to the inherent dignity and vocation of women. I’m grateful for my educational opportunities, the right to vote, my career opportunities the fact that I am able to lead a non-profit organization, a stark contrast from what the vast majority of women throughout history, and even living today have enjoyed. Furthermore, I’m grateful that I am 100% equal in dignity to my husband.

But I am tired of the damaging and erroneous idea that abortion is a positive thing for women. I have met so many women that profoundly grieve having been involved in an abortion. I’ve talked to a dad who lost his daughter to legal abortion. There is study after study showing the negative consequences of abortion – be it emotionally or physically.

Because of the cause of “reproductive rights,” approximately 30 million females are missing in the United States today – future Olympic athletes, scientists, doctors, artists, teachers, sisters, mothers, daughters, lawmakers, and maybe even a President. Women deserve the truth about this issue. Abortion is profoundly anti-woman. Choosing life is empowering, not taking the life of your precious little one.