The pro-life movement is alive

Last Friday, the most powerful politicians in America showed up at the National March for Life in Washington, D.C., in a stunning show of support for the pro-life cause.

President Donald Trump addressed the marchers by video, thanking them for their “extraordinary love and compassion for the unborn” and touting his pardoning of pro-life activists convicted of civil disobedience. Vice President J.D. Vance made his first post-inauguration appearance and began his remarks by promising to show up again next year, as well. He gave a 12-minute speech in which he stated unequivocally, “We march to protect the unborn; we march to proclaim and live out the sacred truth that every single child is a miracle and a gift from God.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also took the stage.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gave a magnificent speech trumpeting the defeat of Amendment 4 in his state in November. “I ran on a pro-life platform on the Heartbeat Protection Act, and I won the largest victory that any Republican has ever won in the history of the state of Florida,” he told the cheering crowd.

DeSantis noted that the abortion lobby spent more than $100 million to enshrine abortion on demand in the Florida Constitution—and lost. “We barnstormed the state,” he said. “I had physicians against Amendment 4. We had survivors of abortion talking against Amendment 4. You name it, we did it.”

DeSantis went on to say, “We even mobilized our state agencies, and we ran public service announcements dispelling the lies that were being told about Florida’s heartbeat bill.”

The result? A model for every pro-life politician in America: Leaders who have conviction and stand on principle combined with an effective strategy can win and save tens of thousands of lives as a result.

DeSantis put it well: “The sanctity of life does not depend on poll results, it doesn’t depend on which way the wind is blowing; it’s an enduring truth, and it represents the foundation of our society.” Amen to that.

I was in the nation’s capital for most of Inauguration Week, and many pro-life leaders were asking the same question: Would the second Trump administration look like the first? Or would it be guided by Donald Trump’s less pro-life statements on the campaign trail?

The past year has been discouraging. Trump had the pro-life plank taken out of the GOP platform for the first time since 1984. He had called heartbeat bills “harsh” and “extreme.” He flip-flopped on Florida’s Amendment 4. He had promised to veto any federal abortion ban. His son Eric stated that he was pro-abortion in principle, and Melania Trump came out as pro-abortion just before the election. For months, Donald Trump made it clear: The transactional deal he had struck with the pro-life movement in his first term was over.

The previous Republican coalition was based on the anti-communist “fusionism” spearheaded decades ago by William F. Buckley Jr., conservative icon and founder of National Review. It was an uneasy alliance of, among others, libertarians, social conservatives, neoconservatives, and paleoconservatives who disagreed on much but were passionately united against global communism.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, that coalition no longer made much sense. Indeed, a key reason so many social conservatives became passionate defenders of Donald Trump is that they had always felt sidelined and patronized within the traditional GOP, something Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America founder Marjorie Dannenfelser describes well in her 2020 insider account, Life Is Winning: Inside the Fight for Unborn Children and Their Mothers.

Donald Trump smashed the already-disintegrating Buckley fusionism permanently. During his first presidential run, it seemed as if a previously non-negotiable GOP orthodoxy was dispensed with every week. In a political accomplishment of genuinely herculean proportions, he created a new coalition of voters: the MAGA movement.

This new “America First” fusionism includes not only some segments of the previous coalition—paleoconservatives and social conservatives—but many pro-abortion factions, as well, including the “bar-stool conservatives,” anti-woke liberals, and Joe Rogan–style libertarians. For the political arm of the pro-life movement, the question is simple: Do pro-lifers still have a seat at the table in this new coalition?

The lineup at this year’s March for Life clearly gives reason for cautious optimism. President Trump cannot run for another term, and thus, his decision to deliver an address by video indicates that he still sees the pro-life movement as an important ally. Vice President Vance, who had previously assured social conservatives that their seat at the table is secure “so long as I have any influence in this party,” made good on his word within days of being sworn in. If Vance is the future of the MAGA movement—and I certainly hope that he is—his reference to the pro-life movement as “our movement” is profoundly encouraging. The Trump administration has already defunded International Planned Parenthood, inserted fetal personhood language into an executive order affirming the male-female sex binary, and pardoned pro-life protestors.

Will the second Trump administration look like the first? Time will tell—but some of our fears have thus far been allayed and our hopes have been lifted, and for that, I am very grateful. The pro-life movement must press on.