Washington D.C., Jan 19, 2018 / 12:11 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- President Donald Trump praised the pro-life movement’s support for pregnant women and touted his administration’s pro-life policy achievements in his remarks to the March for Life Friday.
“You come from many backgrounds, many places, but you all come for one beautiful cause: to build a society where life is celebrated, protected and cherished,” he told the March for Life Jan. 19 via videocast. “The March for Life is a movement born out of love.”
“You love every child, born and unborn, because you believe that every life is sacred, that every child is a precious gift from God,” he told the marchers on the National Mall while speaking before an audience in the White House Rose Garden. “Because of you, tens of thousands of Americans have been born and reached their full God-given potential. Because of you.”
Hundreds of thousands of people were in Washington, D.C. to attend this year’s March for Life, which is in its 45th year. The theme of this year’s march is “Love Saves Lives.” The march is held annually on or near the anniversary of the Jan. 22, 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision which mandated permissive abortion laws nationwide.
The president said he was “honored and really proud” to address the march. While previous presidents addressed the march while in office by phone or remote loudspeaker, organizers said he is the first president to do so via telecast.
Trump said the Roe decision resulted in “some of the most permissive abortion laws anywhere in the world,” making the U.S. comparable to countries like China and North Korea in permitting late-term abortions.
“It is wrong, it has to change,” he said. “Americans are more and more pro-life.”
Trump promised that his administration would always defend the right to life.
He touted his re-implementation of the Mexico City Policy, which bars federal funds for groups that perform or promote abortion overseas, and cited his administration’s reversal of an Obama-era policy that restricted state’s efforts to direct federal dollars away from “facilities that violate the law.” He voiced strong support for a House bill to ban late-term abortions in which supporters say the unborn child can feel pain. Trump called on the Senate to “pass this important law.”
He also cited his executive order protecting religious liberty and an effort to protect conscience rights and religious freedom of doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals.
The president also introduced Marianne Donaido, a woman whose parents supported her when she became pregnant at the age of 17. He praised her work with Room at the Inn, a Greensboro, N.C.-based maternity program that helps house and support pregnant homeless women. The charity is affiliated with Catholic Charities USA.
In a separate Jan. 19 statement, Trump declared that Jan. 22, the anniversary of the Roe decision, will be National Sanctity of Human Life Day, “to affirm the truth that all life is sacred, that every person has inherent dignity and worth, and that no class of people should ever be discarded as ‘non-human’.”
Vice President Mike Pence, who addressed last year’s March for Life in person, introduced Trump in the Rose Garden. He said the Roe Supreme Court decision “turned its back on the right to life” but began the pro-life movement that continues today, a movement defined by “compassion and love.”
“Life is winning in America, because love save lives,” he told the march. “Your compassion, your persistence your activism and your prayers are saving lives… this pro-life generation should never doubt that we are with you.”
“This president stands with you,” he said, contending that Trump was “the most pro-life president in American history.”
Trump once declared himself “pro-choice in every respect,” but increasingly advocated anti-abortion views ahead of and during his 2016 election campaign, Politico reports.
Other political leaders at the March for Life rally were House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other Members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.).
In previous years Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush addressed the March for Life remotely.
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I am embarrassed that CWR has once again referred to President Trump as a focus of good morals. Given all his sexual escapades before and while he was in office places him as persona non grata with the life movement.
Not sure why you’re embarrassed by CWR running a NEWS story about an event, containing information about what was said and done. You do know how news reports work, right? Goodness. As for his alleged sexual “escapades” while “he was in office” [sic], do you have some NEWS that the rest of us haven’t heard yet?
Thanks Carl for defending President Trump.
President Trump is on the receiving end of all kinds of slander and false accusations recently (the recent false accusation that he is “racist” is mortally sinful, and that false accusation was even propagated by the USCCB, a prominent Cardinal, and many bishops! He, along with 3 others denied he said, “s-hole”; instead, he was APPARENTLY merely accurately describing Third World countries, and that is not racist – otherwise even the USCCB would be racist for calling those countries 3rd World!)
It is likely that morganB is an angry “Resistance” member, whose group is much like Nazis including their salute which is a clenched “solidarity fist”, and whose “Aryan race” is “diversity” and “multi-culturalism.”
The forceful and aggressive push for multi-culturalism by the violent and aggressive Resistance Leftists mirrors the Nazis forceful push for Aryanism; except the New Nazis (the “Resistance”) are racist against white Americans, and the New Nazi Salute is the clenched and raised “solidarity fist.”
This racism against white American citizens is a tenet of “Russia’s errors” which Our Lady of Fatima denounced and implied is mortally sinful. After the U.S. defeated Naziism in WWII, the Nazis spread racism against white Americans in attempt to conquer their enemies, the U.S.A. Now, that racism against white Americans has entered through the Southern border as well as through other means.
“Russia’s errors” – mortal sins – spread to Latin America, too, and now that Latin America is invading the U.S., we see quite clear anti-Americanism on display. Illegal immigration and amnesty for DACA dreamers are forms of theft, lying, and cheating. They also often include coveting thy neighbors’ goods, and thus, amnesty and the Dream Act are likely mortal sins.
Long-winded, but necessary. Mr. Olson, you are doing an upright thing by maintaining President Trump’s good name.
The operative word for the website’s soft touch on Trump is “enablement”. Would you suggest that Trump play the role model for my youngsters? He is such a phony with more than 2000 lies in one year. The reason I am embarrassed is the church aligning itself with a narcissistic, anti-immigrant buffoon who cares only about himself. Strange bedfellows indeed!
Your inability or unwillingness to make basic, fundamental distinctions is lamentable. But hardly uncommon. Carrying a news report on Trump’s remarks to the March of Life participants is not “enablement”. It’s called “news”. If you would actually read this site, you would find far more criticism of Trump than praise. For instance, back in April 2017, I wrote:
And that is just one example. That said, I don’t think Trump is Hitler, or that he should be removed from office because of his many bad and immoral actions of the past. I assume, for sake of argument, that you robustly demanded that Bill Clinton be removed from office after it was made known that he and a young intern performed sexual acts on one another–in that same office? Or that you were angered with President Obama referred to a large swath of Americans as “teabaggers,” which is a thinly veiled reference to most disgusting sexual act? And to say the the American bishops have “aligned” themselves with Trump is beyond laughable, especially when it comes to immigration. You either are unable to read and process news, or simply repeat the lazy, ideological blatherings of others. Try to do better.
While he was in office? I thought that was just confined to FDR, JFK, and WJC?
Please inform me.
Many if not everybody has a past but it’s where you end up is what matters.
Living with third wife (sex-kitten model past, with no apologies evident), innuendo based tweets. It’s really the fact that he has NOT repented his pre-office life, we’re supposed to just write it off as locker room normality.
Scrape his MFL address, there is precious little objective hope for abolition under his auspices. You don’t set up multiple bureaucracies to protect “religious freedom” for prolife workers if you are going to abolish abortion anyway. These policies of his are deckchairs on the titanic.
Gorsuch is a “states rights” for abortion man, in the mold of Scalia just as Trump promised. Woohoo! “Walking around persons” supremacy!
Bragging about low unemployment for women is about the richest irony you can get when his daughter is delegated to be daycare czar.
Oh, and let’s not forget all of the slushiness on homosex and transgender in his first year. So perhaps folks are conflating that with his personal life simply because it’s all of a piece with his pre-presidential-run.
” You don’t set up multiple bureaucracies to protect “religious freedom” for prolife workers if you are going to abolish abortion anyway.”
It is not in his power to abolish abortion, thanks to the disgraceful decision of the Supreme Court.
a)”While he was in office?” I haven’t heard of any accusations about anything of the sort while he has been in office.
b)Whatever his sins may be, he is defending life. If he is “persona non grata with the life movement,” (which I take leave to doubt), they are being shamefully exclusive. Martin Luther King, Jr., was an adulterer and a plagiarist, but nonetheless is rightly honored for his accomplishments.
Listening to CNN MSNBC et Al the objection raised by MorganB prevails as the judgment and only issue. Constant. Unrelenting. Hypocritical. Why do so many find hope and are elated not only in what the enigma called Donald Trump has accomplished. But also in the man. Psychiatrists have even made Internet Analyses. Who is this man? Who has a jaded past and speaks, at times coarsely. Well we’ve found out who he is. He is us!
If half of the country is pro-life (although I would dispute that percentage) and half is pro-choice … who wins? This “fight” back and forth will go on forever. What do we do? How can we make everyone happy?
Father Morello is so right: “(Trump) is us”.
I cannot understand why people who appreciate his undeniable first-year achievements (especially on the pro-life, pro-family, pro-religious liberty fronts, not to mention his magnificent Rose Garden address to the March for Life) must always put their foot in a bucket by referencing real or alleged sins and misdemeanors he may have committed in prior years. As for his presumptively illicit union with Melania, let us not forget that a previous hero of the pro-life movement, Ronald Reagan, was living in a presumptively illicit union with his First Lady — and he accomplished a lot less for pro-life, pro-family causes in 8 years than Donald Trump has accomplished in one. In fact, one might argue that with the tenor of their AIDS victim advocacy, the Reagans did much to “legitimize” the homosexual lifestyle.
Trump is us, because with all of our sins and character flaws, we all are in the right place in this moment for life, for family and for religious freedom.
I am guessing that Morgan would NOT like us to exhume JFK’s body, put him on show trial for adultery and sexual abuse of women, including interns, and then shame him with a parade of 500 thousand mad-hatted nasty women.
Votes in favor of shaming JFK? I will count…0K?
Even in these darkened times there is still someone of considerable power to speak up and defend the unborn.
For all of his imperfections,Trump,should give us all hope.
I am a prolife Democrat who voted for and is thrilled to have Donald J. Trump as my President. The prolife movement could not have a better friend. Just look at what he has done for the movement in a short year with his Supreme Court pick, his Federal judiciary picks and his policies! So maybe he tweets too much and he is often linguistically challenged – but so what? His heart is in right place and he is a born leader who is clear and does what he says he will do. We should all thank God for giving us this imperfect man to lead our country.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. God’s mercy is very generous. Thank you God for President Trump