Trump reiterates pro-life stance at prayer breakfast

WASHINGTON—In his address to the 2019 National Prayer Breakfast, President Donald Trump declared his commitment to religious freedom and the pro-life cause. “I will never let you down,” the president declared to an audience of about 3,500 at the Washington Hilton hotel. He said his administration is committed to protecting international religious freedom and halting religious persecution. Trump also spoke on protecting faith-based adoption agencies’s right to place children in families “while following their deeply held beliefs.” He elicited the loudest cheers of the morning when he repeated a statement from his State of the Union address that “all children, born and unborn, are made in the holy image of God,” adding that “every life is sacred and every soul is a precious gift from Heaven” and quoting Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”

Other speakers came from various denominations and opposite sides of the partisan divide. Keynote speaker Gary Haugen, president and CEO of International Justice Mission, spoke about not growing weary of doing good and highlighted the work to eliminate global slavery. “It’s one of those moments and it’s one of those issues where if we all do our part to raise our voices and to raise our resources, millions of God’s children can know the freedom for which they have been made.” The Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who delivered a sermon at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in Great Britain last year, read from 1 Corinthians 13.

At the close of the event, co-chairmen Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Chris Coons, D-Del., laid hands on the president to pray for him before he left.