March for Life

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Iowans celebrate year anniversary of 6-week abortion ban at annual March for Life

(DES MOINES REGISTER) — Nearly a year after Iowa’s six-week abortion ban took effect, dozens of Iowans from across the state came together at the state Capitol for the third annual Iowa March for Life.

They gathered on Saturday, June 21 to celebrate the passing of the abortion ban and to encourage fellow pro-life Iowans to keep fighting for the legislation they wish to see.

The afternoon began inside the Capitol rotunda, with live music and educational booths from a number of different pro-life groups and support centers from around the state. Alternatives Pregnancy Center, based out of Waterloo, promoted its services that extended beyond pregnancy support, including STD testing, parenting classes, fatherhood programming and more.

“We want (women and families) to feel supported in their community and where they’re at,” said  Independence Epley, a representative of Alternatives Pregnancy Center. “We want to be the ones that stand alongside them as there’s so many voices that are crowding them. You know there’s so many options and we want to be able to help them walk through this season with joy, ultimately.”

(Originally published by Des Moines Register)

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Here’s how the pro-life movement can support Moms this Mother’s Day

(WASHINGTON EXAMINER) — Almost three years after achieving the pro-life movement’s initial long-term legal goal of reversing Roe v. Wade, and as we continue to work towards increased protections for the unborn, the cultural and practical work of supporting moms and building a robust life-supporting culture is more crucial than ever. And Mother’s Day is a perfect opportunity to reflect on how to do that.

As a mom, Mother’s Day is always very special to me — but this year more than ever.  This year, as the new leader of an iconic pro-life organization, I’m reflecting not just on the beautiful challenge that is motherhood, but also on the tangible support mothers need — especially those facing an unexpected pregnancy or raising a child in difficult circumstances. Now, more than ever, our movement must bring our formidable network, our nationwide resources, and our unmatched zeal to bear on offering holistic, hands-on support to moms who need it most.

A good starting point on the policy front is the recently introduced More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed Act. This bill offers Congress an opportunity to do something both meaningful and practical: empower women by offering concrete support and resources during the critical prenatal, postpartum, and early childhood periods. I hope it will be passed with bipartisan support.

Legislation must be only a part of the effort, however. Institutions at all levels of society should devote themselves to walking with mothers, too. I’ve seen firsthand what’s possible when institutions take this mission seriously. In a previous role at a university, I founded a program to support pregnant and parenting members of our community — from undergrads facing an unplanned pregnancy to grad students starting families and even faculty balancing work and family life. With the backing of key leaders across the university, we created a program that provided support, tailored to the concrete needs of our particular community — and it has been a great success.

To design this type of truly effective support for women, we must understand the cultural and practical pressures that come to bear on pregnant women. Our society tells young women that motherhood, especially when unplanned, will derail their dreams—that they must choose between their future and their child. This unfair and offensive narrative exacts a real cost from women and their babies. According to data from The Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research center, 74% of women who choose abortion cite concerns about their future. Pair this with the second most cited reason, which is financial concerns, for 73% of women choosing abortion — and you have the perfect storm: women fear their future will be derailed and they will be mired in poverty.

These numbers are a call to action for the pro-life movement. We have to counter the idea that motherhood is a threat to women, and offer steady, compassionate, and practical support that allows women to say yes to life without saying no to their future. If financial concerns drive many abortion decisions, then pro-life engagement and all people of good will must focus on ensuring that women have access to the economic support and tangible resources that they need in order to confidently choose life for their baby.

Here’s the good news: this support already exists, across our nation. Over 2,700 pregnancy-care centers and maternity homes in communities large and small stand ready to offer holistic support — material, educational, emotional, and psychological — for pregnant women and new mothers. In my first few months leading the March for Life, I’ve had the privilege of visiting several of these centers across the country as my travels have taken me to Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, and beyond. Each one is rooted in and responsive to its particular community, and run by staff and volunteers devoted wholeheartedly to walking with women through an unexpected pregnancy and empowering them to know their own strength as mothers.

Demand for the life-affirming services and support offered by PRCs and maternity homes is high, and we should all commit ourselves to helping them as they help women. The MOMS Act would make additional government resources available to nonprofits that assist moms, but government support is not enough; this is an opportunity for the entire community, including businesses, faith communities, schools, universities, and neighbors, to step up and ensure they have the resources and staffing necessary to serve women effectively.

Many women who get abortions didn’t want to have one, but feel hemmed in by their circumstances. This fact should compel us all to act — with urgency and compassion — to ensure that no woman feels she must end the life of her child for lack of support. That will continue to be a key part of my work at the March for Life, and I invite all who care about moms and their babies to join me.

Jennie Bradley Lichter is the president of March for Life Education and Defense Fund, and formerly served as Deputy Assistant to President Trump and Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

(Originally published by Washington Examiner)

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March for Life “Choose Health, Not Harm” Rally – April 2, 2025

What is the case about?
The Supreme Court in Alliance Defending Freedom’s case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, is considering whether states can say NO to using Americans’ hard-earned money to fund Planned Parenthood’s radical, political pro-abortion agenda. Americans shouldn’t be forced to fund abortion facilities like Planned Parenthood.

What’s at stake?
A victory could enable states to finally defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities, starting in South Carolina, and instead fund high-quality, healthcare services.

What is your role?
The Choose Health, Not Harm Rally will be held while the Supreme Court hears the oral argument for Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. You can stand up to Planned Parenthood’s pro-abortion agenda and support real healthcare providers helping families and children in need.

What: Choose Health, Not Harm Rally
Hosted by: March for Life

When: Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Starting at 9:30 AM

Where: The Steps of the United States Supreme Court
1 First Street NE, Washington, D.C. 20543

Questions?
RallyInfo@ChooseHealthNotHarm.org

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A Promising Pro-Life Start

(NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER) — EDITORIAL: Both President Trump and Vice President Vance voiced their support of the pro-life cause at the Jan. 24 March for Life in Washington.

Despite the arctic chill that enveloped the nation’s capital on Jan. 24, participants in this year’s March for Life were warmed by a spirit of measured optimism.

And the pro-life actions initiated by the newly installed Trump-Vance administration during its first week were a substantial contributor to this positive perspective.

Both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance voiced their full-throated support for the marchers’ pro-life cause. Vance addressed them personally, and in his videotaped remarks Trump declared, “In my second term, we will again stand proudly for families and for life.”

More importantly, the president and vice president’s words were matched by concrete action.

One day ahead of the March for Life, the president announced the pardon of 23 pro-life advocates who were convicted of Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act violations during his predecessor Joe Biden’s term of office. Controversy surrounds some of Trump’s other recent pardons, as well as those dispensed by Biden in the final days of his own outgoing presidency.

No such concerns should attach to Trump’s FACE Act clemency, however. The pardoned pro-lifers were clearly the victims of a Department of Justice that under Biden was determined to advance abortion rights by any means available, no matter how unjust.

Going forward under the new administration, peaceful pro-lifers won’t be prosecuted in this manner because the Trump DOJ has released a directive limiting future FACE Act enforcement to “extraordinary circumstances” involving cases where death, injury or serious property damage occurs.

It can also be hoped that, in concert with the Republican-controlled Congress, Trump will push for a total repeal of this Clinton-era legislation. That’s the only way to ensure it will never again be wrongly weaponized to jail the peaceful pro-life demonstrators at abortion facilities who strive to awaken hearts and minds to the destructive realities associated with legal abortion.

On the day of the March for Life itself, Trump rolled out additional substantive pro-life measures. Most prominently, these included an executive order reinstating the Mexico City Policy that prohibits any taxpayer funding of foreign organizations that provide and promote abortions. An accompanying executive order committed the administration to full enforcement of the Hyde Amendment, the congressional measure that prohibits direct federal funding for abortions domestically.

While Trump’s policy moves on immigration and the death penalty have opened up fault lines with Catholic leaders, the new administration’s initial pro-life forays garnered praise from the U.S. bishops.

“I am grateful for the strengthening of policies that protect us from being compelled to participate in a culture of death and that help us to restore a culture of life at home and abroad,” Bishop Daniel Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ pro-life committee, said in a Jan. 26 statement.

The Trump administration’s opening moves also traveled some distance towards easing widespread pro-life concerns about Trump’s campaign-trail statements that he would not support a national 16-week limit on abortion or halt distribution of the abortion pills that now constitute a majority of U.S. abortions and are being mailed into states with bans on most or all abortions.

Those remain serious concerns, to be sure. But what has happened to date represents a promising beginning for Trump’s second term, with respect to the pro-life file.

(Originally published by National Catholic Register)

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Trump vows to oppose ‘abortion on demand’ in virtual March for Life address

(WASHINGTON EXAMINER) — President Donald Trump addressed the 52nd March for Life on Friday, promising in virtual remarks that he would continue to support the anti-abortion movement despite the softer stance he took on the campaign trail.

“In my second term, we will again stand proudly for families and for life,” Trump said in an address that aired hours ahead of schedule. “We will protect the historic gains we have made and stop the radical Democrat push for a federal right to unlimited abortion on demand.”

Vice President JD Vance, who attended in person, then delivered remarks to the crowd in Washington, his first since Inauguration Day at the start of the week.

While Trump has taken a more nuanced stance toward abortion policy since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization threw the issue back to the states in 2022, he pledged in his virtual address to continue backing families and the anti-abortion cause more generally.

“Thanks to your tireless work and devotion across five decades, that historic wrong was set right three years ago,” Trump said, referring to Roe v. Wade. “I was so proud to be a participant. Six courageous justices of the Supreme Court of the United States returned the issue to the state legislatures and to the people, where it belongs.”

He added that in a second term, “We will again stand proudly for families and for life,” but stopped short of calling for federal action on that front.

Vance carried the torch for the Trump administration in person this year, as Trump spent Friday touring disaster sites in North Carolina and California. The father of three young children, he spoke not only about government policy but what he described as the need for cultural change.

“We failed a generation, not only by permitting a culture of abortion on demand but also by neglecting to help young parents achieve the ingredients they need to lead a happy and meaningful life,” Vance said. “A culture of radical individualism took root, one where the responsibilities and joys of family life were seen as obstacles to overcome, not as personal fulfillment or personal blessings.”

He also talked about “the obligation that one generation has to another” and said the issue is about more than simply opposing abortion.

“Let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vance said. “I want more happy children in our country. And I want beautiful, young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them.”

The presence of Vance was significant. Prior to the first Trump administration, no vice president had ever attended the March for Life. Trump, for his part, was the first sitting president to appear in person, delivering remarks in Washington in 2020.

Other notable speakers Friday included House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).

The March for Life is held in late January each year to mark the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which was handed down on Jan. 22, 1973, and has continued even though the case is no longer the law of the land.

Like Trump, Vance has sought to thread a needle on the topic of abortion. He said last year that the Republican Party had lost the trust of voters over abortion policy, even while maintaining that the GOP needs to remain the “pro-family party.” Vance has expressed support for a 15-week federal abortion ban with exceptions, though he also maintains that individual states should be left to craft their own policies.

“I think that we want to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word,” Vance said at last October’s vice presidential debate. “We want to promote more people choosing life. But I think that there has to be a balance here. A balance between states that are making their own abortion policies.”

On Friday, Vance described Trump as “the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes.”

“You make it possible for us to stand here and say that America is fundamentally a pro-baby, a pro-life, and a pro-family country,” Vance told the crowd.

(Originally published by Washington Examiner)