STANDING FOR LIFE: OHIO PRO-LIFERS RALLY AT STATEHOUSE

October 3, 2025 By March for Life Leave a Comment

STANDING FOR LIFE: OHIO PRO-LIFERS RALLY AT STATEHOUSE

Rally features Leading Pro-Life Advocates, Bishop of Toledo, and national and local leaders

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – October 3, 2025

Washington, D.C. – March for Life, in partnership with the Center for Christian Virtue, will lead the 4th Annual Ohio March for Life on October 3rd in Columbus, OH. The march will take place on the West lawn of the Ohio Statehouse, standing up against extreme abortion policies.

“We are proud to join with the Center for Christian Virtue to stand for life in Ohio,” said March for Life president Jennie Bradley Lichter. “Our goal is simple: protect babies, support women, and ensure Ohio chooses a life-affirming future.”

“The Ohio March for Life has become the largest annual rally at the Ohio Statehouse,” said Aaron Baer, president of Center for Christian Virtue, “Our cause is too important to stop now. Ohioans from across the state are united in declaring that until every life in Ohio is valued and protected, we march on.“

The Ohio March for Life brings together pro-life Ohioans from across the state. Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade restored the power to protect the unborn to the people at both the state and federal level, March for Life has organized more than 30 demonstrations in states nationwide.

Ohio is home to over 120 free life-affirming clinics and resource centers, providing women, children and families with excellent healthcare and essential support to meet their unique needs.

2025 Ohio March for Life

2025 Ohio March for Life
What: The 4th Annual Ohio March for Life
Where: West lawn of the Ohio Statehouse, 1 Capitol Sq, Columbus, OH 43215
When: Friday, October 3, 2025

-10:00 a.m. Pre-Rally Concert

-11:00 a.m. Rally

-12:00 p.m. Pennsylvania March for Life

Speakers at the rally include:

–Melissa Ohden, Founder and Director, Abortion Survivors Network – Keynote Speaker

-Bishop Daniel E. Thomas, Diocese of Toledo, Chairman, USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities

-Representative Adam Mathews, Ohio House of Representatives

-Aaron Baer, President, Center for Christian Virtue

-Felicia Pricenor, Vice President of Government Affairs, March for Life

-Kate Makra, President, Right to Life Action Coalition of Ohio

-Savannah Marten, Executive Director, Bella Vita Network

-Michael and Damaris Oldfied, Pastors, Potter’s House

CONTACT: Pesch Strategy I Kate Monaghan Connolly

kateconnolly@peschstrategy.com

 646-717-4999

###

March for Life is a non-sectarian organization that promotes the beauty and dignity of every human life by working to end abortion – uniting, educating, and mobilizing pro-life people in the public square. It hosts the world’s largest annual human rights demonstration in Washington, DC every January.

October 2, 2025 By March for Life Leave a Comment

March for Life Won’t Just Oppose Abortion Next Year

(Daily Signal) — The new president of the March for Life announced that the theme for the 53rd annual march is “Life is a Gift.” On Jan. 23, tens of thousands are expected to gather on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to march to bring awareness to the hundreds of thousands of abortions that occur in the United States each year and to convince people of the sacredness of human life.

The organization also announced that Grammy-nominated Christian rock band Sanctus Real will perform at a pre-march rally. Friends of Club 21 Choir, a group of young adults from Colorado with Down syndrome, will sing the national anthem. And Sarah Hurm, a mother who began to abort her child using the abortion pill, will give the featured testimony, sharing how she changed her mind and saved her baby with the abortion pill reversal procedure.

Jennie Bradley Lichter, the new president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, shared her vision for the 53rd March for Life at a news conference on Tuesday.

“Our goal,” Lichter shared, “is to invite everyone to the irrepressible joy of the March for Life; to be swept up into a movement that transcends politics and celebrates the joy, beauty, and goodness of life itself.”

She emphasized that the theme, Life is a Gift, speaks to the heart: “We want to draw people in by emphasizing what makes the march so powerful: joy, unity and radiant hope of tens of thousands of people coming together.”

For 53 years, pro-life supporters have come together for this event. Lichter believes the march continues to flourish after all these years because “it is rooted in this fundamental conviction that life is a gift. That is a core human truth, and that truth has immense staying power.”

Last year, JD Vance made his first public appearance at the march as the vice president. He joined the rally stage with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The organization shared that while President Donald Trump hasn’t yet made plans to attend this year, he voiced his support for life and the march last year via video. He pledged that in his second term he would “stand proudly for families and for life.”

The group expects to announce more speakers as it gets closer to January.

The March for Life Education and Defense Fund is the organization that powers the public demonstration every year. It operates year-round, organizing small state marches across the country and lobbying for pro-life policies.

(Originally published by Daily Signal)

October 2, 2025 By March for Life Leave a Comment

March for Life 2026: ‘Life Is a Gift’

(National Review) — The March for Life announced its theme for the January 23 demonstration: “Life Is a Gift.” Jennie Bradley Lichter, the new president of the March for Life, said in an announcement that this year’s theme “invites everyone . . . to be swept up into a movement that transcends politics and celebrates the joy, beauty and goodness of life itself by recommitting ourselves: to each other, to every woman facing a pregnancy and to every child.”

“Life is a gift” has long been a salient message when fighting against abortion, but it is similarly relevant in other fertility-related discourse, specifically that about in vitro fertilization. Reproductive technologies treat children as products rather than gifts, and, accordingly, children are subjected to versions of quality control and performance reviews — not only with respect to health but also aesthetic traits such as eye and hair color. Parents with big enough bank accounts can essentially test and grade their embryos with respect to hereditary disorders and physical traits like height, then choose whichever children are supposedly worthy of implantation and thus a chance at birth. Moreover, products for purchase can become the topic of heated debates about ownership: In divorce cases in which a married couple has frozen embryos, the children are treated as property to be owned rather than as human beings with rights.

Putting aside fertility and pregnancy, “life is a gift” seems to have great resonance this season as a series of devastating events in our country has revealed a thriving culture of death. We saw the assassination of the Unitedhealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in 2024 because someone had a grievance with his line of work, and then we watched the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk onstage during a university appearance as he was responding to a question from the audience. Neither tragedy should have occurred, and each provided an opportunity for the divided nation to attempt catharsis by categorically condemning politically motivated violence, thereby restoring a bit of faith in the American project. But that didn’t happen, not really. Alleged assassin Luigi Mangione has become something of a heroic celebrity and accumulated more than $1 million in donations for legal support, while Kirk’s murder was widely celebrated in progressive forums such as Bluesky as a victory over “fascism.” These murders, along with the reactions to them, evoke a sense of despair, frustration, and fury that drains our confidence in ourselves and in our country.

“Life is a gift” is a morally instructive theme when evaluating issues like abortion that treat a young child as a removable appendage, when navigating new technologies that devalue human life to a customizable commodity, and when pockets of the left rejoice in the brutal deaths of their perceived political enemies.

(Originally published by National Review)

October 2, 2025 By March for Life Leave a Comment

March for Life reveals 2026 theme in ‘critical moment’ for the pro-life cause

(OSV News) — The 2026 National March for Life theme is “Life is a Gift,” The March for Life Education and Defense Fund announced Sept. 30.

Jennie Bradley Lichter, who became president of the March for Life earlier this year, noted the group chooses a theme each year for the annual pro-life march in Washington as “an opportunity to focus our attention on a key message or a timely element of the prolife mission.”

“We’re now at a critical moment in our country where the march for life and what we stand for is more important than ever,” Lichter told reporters at a launch event, adding, “This year, with this theme, we really want to speak to the heart.”

“It is really a moment for boldness,” she added.

In response to a question about whether they anticipate speakers from the White House or Congress, Lichter joked that “politicians never make commitments this far ahead of time.” But she said the event is “a go-to political stage,” citing a video message from President Donald Trump at the 2025 event and in-person remarks then from Vice President JD Vance, as well as messages from House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Just knowing the baseline that all of these folks have been engaged in the past, we’re fully anticipating robust engagement this year, too,” she said.

Lichter also cited the recent murder of Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder, arguing its aftermath shows that “young people are looking for opportunities to come together, to hear the truth spoken boldly and persuasively, to recover the fundamental goodness of family life, and to help to hear people speak into that, to be affirmed in their desire for children as something that’s fundamentally good, and to hear people witnessing to what’s good and true and beautiful.”

“That’s my diagnosis of our moment,” she said. “The March for Life offers all of these.”

After his death, Kirk received praise from his allies in conservative politics for his willingness to debate and his advocacy for their cause. However, in discussions about his legacy, his critics also pointed to his controversial political rhetoric on subjects including race, persons experiencing same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria, and immigrants.

In response to a question about whether Kirk’s death, amid other recent instances of political violence — which also include assassination attempts against Trump, but also the murders of Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, and the firebombing of the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, which is being investigated as the attempted murder of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro — has changed the event’s security planning, Lichter emphasized the group is committed to working with law enforcement to ensure the security of speakers and attendees.

“Our baseline is security upon security upon security, to make the site secure,” Lichter stressed.

“We will be — as we’ve done with our state marches — taking a close look at our existing security plan and working really closely with our law enforcement partners to ensure that every base is covered,” she said. “But we have every confidence in the world, and the folks that we work with in law enforcement, who know this event very well, they’re committed to it. They’ve worked with us for many years, and I think that will continue.”

Organizers of the March for Life describe it as the nation’s largest annual human rights demonstration.

The 53rd annual National March for Life is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. A pre-rally concert will feature the Christian band Sanctus Real, Lichter said, and the Friends of Club 21 Choir, which is comprised of individuals with Down syndrome, will lead the national anthem at the event.

Georgetown University Right to Life will carry the banner at the start of the March.

Lichter said the group is also launching a “Marchers’ Stories Project” where they will seek video submissions from participants to document the group’s history.

(Originally published by OSV News)

October 1, 2025 By March for Life Leave a Comment

The March for Life Unveils 2026 Theme, Energized by New Leadership, Renewed Momentum and a Movement United

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – October 1, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, the March for Life unveiled the theme for the 2026 National March for Life: “Life Is a Gift” at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Under the leadership of new President Jennie Bradley Lichter, the March for Life is renewing its commitment to energizing and uniting the pro-life movement at a pivotal moment in history.

This year, the March seeks not only to gather tens of thousands on the National Mall, but to serve as a catalytic moment, rekindling hope, resolve and purpose across the broader pro-life community. For decades, the National March for Life has stood as the largest human rights demonstration in the world, and in 2026 it will continue to fulfill that role as the central rallying point for national and international organizations working to advance a culture of life.

Jennie Bradley Lichter, serving now as President of the March for Life, said, “‘Life Is a Gift’ invites everyone, through the irrepressible joy of the March for Life, to be swept up into a movement that transcends politics and celebrates the joy, beauty and goodness of life itself by recommitting ourselves: to each other, to every woman facing a pregnancy and to every child. This is not a moment for passivity; it is time to renew, reinvigorate and march forward together.”

The 2026 National March for Life will take place on Friday, January 23, 2026, in Washington, D.C. The March for Life has announced that Grammy-nominated Christian band Sanctus Real will perform at a pre-rally concert. The National Anthem at the rally will be led by a chorus of young adults with Down Syndrome called the Friends of Club 21 Choir, based in Colorado Springs. The featured testimony speaker will be Ms Sarah Hurm, from Iowa, whose youngest child’s life was saved by abortion pill reversal. The banner leading the March will be carried by Georgetown University Right to Life.

For media credentials, travel information, and updates on the 2026 March for Life, members of the press can contact: Kate Connolly (kateconnolly@peschstrategy.com)