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WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Donald Trump should “set the moral tone for his second term” by “restor(ing) the full suite of pro-life policies” from his first term once he resumes the presidency just days from now, Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri argued Monday in an op-ed published by World.

On top of nominating three of the five Supreme Court Justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, the “first Trump administration advanced a series of life-protecting rules and regulations through federal agencies that saved untold lives,” Hawley wrote. 

Those actions included disqualifying entities involved in abortion from Title X family planning funds, making federal aid available to pregnancy resource centers that offer abortion alternatives, reinstating the Mexico City Policy blocking foreign aid to pro-abortion groups, restricting the use of aborted fetal tissue in scientific research, and denying a “right” to abortion at the United Nations.

After Joe Biden succeeded Trump as president, his administration set to work dismantling those policies, Hawley recalled that “HHS tried to force federal grant recipients to make referrals for abortions, cut off funding for pregnancy resource centers, and use American tax dollars to help pay for abortions overseas (…) carried out raids on the homes of pro-life Americans and jailed peaceful protesters at abortion facilities ( … and) enacted new federal rules permitting chemical abortion drugs to be mailed into pro-life states, effectively rendering state restrictions on abortion – adopted by voters and elected legislatures – worthless.”

“Thankfully, it’s a new day,” the senator said. “And President Trump has the power to start protecting life again – immediately. He should use that power boldly to protect those who most need it: the innocent unborn.”

“No priority should be – could be – higher than protecting America’s unborn children,” Hawley declared.

Left unstated in the op-ed was the uncertainty as to just what shape the abortion policies of the second Trump administration will take. After the 2022 midterm elections in which many pundits erroneously blamed Republican underperformance on the party’s long-held pro-life stand, Trump began a dramatic retreat from the pro-life record of his first term.

While continuing to take credit for his judicial nominees’ part in overturning Roe, Trump aggressively came out against federally banning abortion to the point of promising to veto any such bill that reached his desk, forced a rewrite of the Republican Party platform to remove its long-standing commitment to eventually banning abortion nationwide, boasted about making the GOP less “radical” on the issue, criticized multiple state pro-life laws for being “too tough,” proclaimed himself the “father” of embryo-destructive in vitro fertilization, and pledged to continue Biden’s non-prosecution of mailing abortion pills – all while assuming (correctly, as it turned out) that most pro-life voters would decide he was still preferable to radically pro-abortion Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

Voters overwhelmingly rejected Democrats in 2024 despite their aggressive abortion messaging that pro-lifers argue should be taken as a sign that Trump and the GOP should hold firm to pro-life goals.

Since the election, Trump has given pro-lifers reason to hope for at least some positive changes on abortion policy, including statements that he will “look” at reinstating the Mexico City Policy, and reported commitments by his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to reinstate several pro-life policies of the first Trump HHS and hire pro-life subordinates despite Kennedy’s own “pro-choice” position.

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