May is National Foster Care Month.

At the March for Life, we believe that being pro-life means defending and cherishing the life of every human being, from the moment of conception. It’s why we march. It’s why we advocate. And it’s why we also care deeply about foster care. 

In a perfect world, every child would grow up in a loving, stable, permanent home. But until that world exists, foster care remains a necessary and urgent response, and one the pro-life movement cannot and should not ignore. 

Children in foster care are living, breathing reminders of why our movement matters. Each one is a life with immeasurable worth. Being pro-life means recognizing the sacred dignity of the child in the womb and the sacred dignity of the child waiting for a stable home, for healing, for hope. 

It also means standing with the families – whether biological, foster, adoptive, kinship care, or stepping into a parental role in some capacity – who walk the hard road of love. It means supporting the moms who courageously choose life but, aren’t able to parent. It means praying for and supporting foster parents who open their hearts in the face of uncertainty and it means recognizing that foster care is not a broken part of the pro-life cause, but a vital extension of it. 

Foster care is pro-life in action. It is the daily, courageous work of loving children who have been through loss and uncertainty. It is the compassion of foster parents who say “yes” to loving without guarantees. It is the commitment of caseworkers, social workers, and volunteers who stand in the gap. It is the hope of biological parents working toward reunification, and the beauty of adoption when reunification is not possible. 

To be pro-life is to see the face of Christ in every child, including the one waiting in the system, the one aging out without a forever home, and the one learning to trust again. Their lives are no less sacred. In fact, they remind us why this mission matters so much. 

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump proclaimed May 2025 as National Foster Care Month. We applaud this administration for its continued commitment to vulnerable children, including ongoing efforts to strengthen the foster care system. We particularly applaud First Lady Melania Trump, who through her Be Best initiative and other efforts, has placed a strong focus on the well-being of children in foster care, raising awareness, advocating for youth aging out of the system, and encouraging compassionate support. 

We invite our March for Life community to reflect, pray, and act. Whether you’re called to foster, support a foster family, mentor a child in care, or simply advocate for better support systems, your voice matters. 

Let us be a movement that doesn’t stop at birth. Let us be a people who march not only for life in the womb, but out of it too. 

Jennie Bradley Lichter was chosen as President-elect of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund in September 2024.  She will assume the office of President of the organization on February 1, 2025.  As a longtime Marcher who began attending the National March as a college student in 2001, Jennie is humbled and honored by the opportunity to lead the March for Life.

Jennie has wide-ranging legal and policy experience in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including at the highest levels of the federal government. During the Trump Administration, Jennie served in the White House as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) where she supervised rulemaking and policy efforts implicating a number of federal agencies, and led policy initiatives across the federal government to defend the dignity of life.

Prior to her White House service, Jennie worked on policy issues and federal judicial (including Supreme Court) confirmation efforts in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice.  She previously served as in-house counsel for the Archdiocese of Washington. Early in her legal career, Jennie clerked for two federal appeals court judges and was an associate at the international law firm Jones Day.

Jennie is currently the Deputy General Counsel at The Catholic University of America and will remain in that role until she joins the March for Life as President-Elect in November 2024.  In addition to her legal work at Catholic University, Jennie also founded and directs The Guadalupe Project, the University’s campus-wide initiative to support and lift up pregnant and parenting students, staff, and faculty.  She is a Fellow at the Center for Religious Liberty in the University’s Columbus School of Law.

Jennie graduated from the University of Notre Dame and from Harvard Law School, and earned an M.Phil in Theology & Religious Studies from the University of Cambridge in the UK.  She and her husband, Brian, have three young children who love attending the March for Life.

 

THIS SUMMER: The Supreme Court of the United States released 3 decisions that are particularly relevant to us as we seek to protect unborn lives from the horrific reality of abortion. 

Case #1: On June 13, 2024, the Supreme Court released a decision in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine,  deciding that that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would not have to reinstate critical safeguards for abortion drugs. It is important to note that the decision was procedural in nature, and not decided on the merits. But in this instance, the Court found the Plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory actions regarding the abortion drug, mifepristone.

For context, in 2016, the FDA retracted one of its safeguards that prevented chemical abortions after 7 weeks, allowing women to take these drugs up to 10 weeks gestation. In addition, in 2021, the FDA recklessly removed a safeguard that required women take these drugs with in-person care, thereby leaving more women to take these drugs alone.  

The FDA’s own label notes that about 1 in 25 women who take these drugs go to the emergency room, experiencing complications such as hemorrhaging and infection.  

Because of the reckless removal of these chemical abortion drugs, doctors asked the Supreme Court to reinstate these necessary safeguards in order to better protect women from life-threating complications.  

Just in June, the Supreme Court decided that the FDA does not have to reinstate these important protections as the court found the Plaintiffs/doctors had no standing to challenge the FDA’s regulatory actions.  However we are encouraged that the Court did  find that ‘[f]ederal law fully protects doctors against being required to provide abortions or other medical treatment against their consciences.’”  

Ultimately, we are disappointed by this decision as this will cause more women to take dangerous chemical drugs without the in-person care of a doctor and will continue to end unborn lives, the very lives we seek to protect. But we are confident that it increased awareness on the dangers of abortion drugs and further proved we must continue to fight for life.  

Case #2: In Moyle v. United States of America, the Biden/Harris administration sued Idaho to override their Defense of Life Act, a law aiming to protect unborn lives. 

The Biden/Harris administration initiated the lawsuit, alleging that the federal law, Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), requires doctors to perform abortion in order to ensure people receive ample care in emergency situations in accordance with EMTALA.  EMTALA requires hospitals that accept Medicare to determine if the person has an “emergency medical condition” through providing “an appropriate medical screening examination within the capability of the hospital’s emergency department.” EMTALA explicitly accounts for the health of both the mother and her “unborn child” throughout the text. If it is determined that an emergency medical condition is present, under EMTALA, the hospital must either treat them or transfer them to another facility that can provide the necessary care. 

Therefore, the Idaho law does not conflict with EMTALA, as it ensures that both mom and baby’s health are prioritized. The Idaho law protects unborn children from abortions that are not critical to saving the life of the mother and would not stop treatment for miscarriage management, ectopic pregnancy, etc.  Doctors under EMTALA and Idaho’s law can treat both mom and baby, relying on good-faith medical judgment to care for both. 

EMTALA should not be distorted as a tool to push abortion access, but the Biden/Harris administration argued that their pro-abortion interpretation of EMTALA should reign supreme. On June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court decided to send the case back to the 9th Circuit for further consideration, asserting that the case should not have reached the Supreme Court.  

We hope the 9th Circuit will recognize the Biden/Harris Administration’s radical misstep and preserve Idaho’s ability to protect the life of both mom and baby.  Americans should be able protect the lives of women and their unborn children without fear of the government pushing an unjust pro-abortion agenda.  

Case #3: In Loper Bright v. Raimondo, Atlantic Herring faced an unfair financial burden placed upon them by a federal regulatory agency, leading them to initiate the lawsuit to highlight the agency’s overreach. 

Plaintiffs argued that regulatory agencies should not have as much power to determine how laws are carried out if not clearly outlined by the law, taking aim at agencies that would seek to mandate according to their understanding and political agenda. 

On June 28, the Supreme Court decided that the regulatory state cannot enforce unreasonable regulations outside of their designated authority, thereby overturning “Chevron deference”—a doctrine that granted agencies the ability to interpret statutes. Courts now rightfully have the responsibility to determine whether an agency has overstepped in its interpretation of a law instead of allowing agencies to exercise unconstitutional authority and overreach in its implementation of a statute. 

This decision will help prevent pro-abortion unelected bureaucrats from using agencies as a mechanism to push the abortion agenda in ways not explicitly designated by Congress.   

A recent example of this agency overreach was seen in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) rule to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The EEOC interpreted the PWFA to mandate that private employers must provide “reasonable accommodations” for elective abortions, which was contrary to clear legislative intent, and the plain meaning of the statutory text is an example of the an administration distorting existing laws to push their own agenda. 

We are grateful for this decision as federal agencies will now be held accountable for abusing their power to push anti-life policies and principles.   

As the Summer draws to a close, we thank you for your partnership as we continue to educate fellow Americans on the need to protect life, whether it be before Congress or the Supreme Court of the United States.