News
Featured Image
Pro-life leader Abby Johnson with Vice President Mike Pence at a reception at the White House on Jan. 27, 2017.Courtesy of Abby Johnson

Image

Thank President Trump for defunding International Planned Parenthood. SIGN THE PETITION. Click here.

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 27, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — In a clear sign of the sea change in Washington this week, Vice President Mike Pence hosted about 40 U.S. pro-life leaders in the White House for an exclusive meeting Thursday night on the eve of the March for Life. Pro-life leaders who attended said the event was intended to encourage them in their efforts. 

“We know of course that Mike Pence, our Vice President, is strongly pro-life. He wanted to encourage and thank pro-lifers all over the country,” National Right to Life President Carol Tobias, who attended the event, told LifeSiteNews. “So he invited pro-life leaders to come to his office for a small reception to do that, to thank us and encourage us.”

Tobias said that such a meeting was inconceivable during the pro-abortion Obama's eight years in office. 

“I think that after eight years of the Obama administration, pro-lifers are just excited that we have a new President and Vice President who are going to make a real difference for unborn babies,” she said.  

Other leaders who attended the event included Notre Dame President Fr. John Jenkins, Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins, BreakPoint radio show host Eric Metaxas, and former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson.

Pence tweeted about the event, stating that he was looking forward to addressing the hundreds of thousands of pro-life demonstrators who will be attending the event today. 

President Trump, retweeting Pence's above tweet this morning, said the pro-life movement has “our full support.”

The March for Life takes place every year in the nation’s Capitol. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children peacefully demonstrate against the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the US. The marchers fight for what organizers call a “world where every human life is valued and protected.”

It will be the first time a Vice President of the United States will attend the March in its 44-year history.

Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America, attended the event. She posted a video on Facebook last night of she and Pence. After she thanked him for being a “leader of the pro-life generation,” he in turn thanked pro-lifers for the work they do in defending life. 

“Thanks for your stand. I couldn’t be more grateful. Hang in there,” he said. 

Pence had promised pro-lifers during Trump’s presidential campaign that he would be their champion in the White House, particularly in defunding abortion-giant Planned Parenthood as well as working to overturn the 1973 abortion decision Roe v. Wade.

“Let me assure you the Trump/Pence administration will stand for the sanctity of life and defend the unborn from the first day that we take office,” he said at the Values Voter Summit in September. “I want to live to see the day that we put the sanctity of life back at the center of American law and we send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history,” he added. 

On his very first day of work in the White House on Monday, Trump signed an executive order reinstating the “Mexico City Policy” which banned government funding of foreign pro-abortion groups like the International Planned Parenthood Federation. 

The following day, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in large majority to permanently ban taxpayer funding of abortion on U.S. soil. The same day Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, promised a “heavy Administration presence” at the March for Life. 

President Trump blasted mainstream media during an interview with ABC News on Wednesday for covering the pro-abortion March for Women while historically ignoring the much larger annual March for Life. He made similar comments again at the Congressional Republican Retreat in Philadelphia yesterday. 

“You know, the press never gives them the credit that they deserve. They’ll have three hundred, four hundred, five hundred, six hundred thousand people. You won’t even read about it,” he said.