Last updated on January 28th, 2020 at 01:37 pm
President Donald Trump’s address to the 2020 March for Life is not the first time a United States President has addressed that gathering, but it is the first time such an address has been given in person. And it is hardly his first courageous act to protect the unborn. Within three days of taking office, he signed an executive order defunding International Planned Parenthood by reinstating and expanding the “Mexico City Policy,” which prevents funding of groups that promote or perform abortions overseas.
Abortionists everywhere, including in the United Nations, fulminated against the newly elected pro-life president, who proceeded without blinking. Among his many accomplishments for the unborn, he appointed dozens of pro-life judges including two Supreme Court justices, expanded conscience protections for medical workers who believe it is wrong to kill an unborn baby, increased religious exemptions for Obamacare, and thwarted a proposed UN resolution supporting abortion. In his 2019 State of the Union Address, he castigated the governors of New York and Virginia for promoting abortion up to birth and infanticide, and urged Congress to pass a ban on late-term abortions.
Then, on January 21, 2020, President Trump designated the next day—January 22, anniversary of the notorious Roe v. Wade decision in 1973—as National Sanctity of Human Life Day, on which “our Nation proudly and strongly reaffirms our commitment to protect the precious gift of life at every stage, from conception to natural death. Every person—the born and unborn, the poor, the downcast, the disabled, the infirm, and the elderly—has inherent value. Although each journey is different, no life is without worth or is inconsequential; the rights of all people must be defended.”
In President Ronald Reagan’s 1989 Farewell Address to the Nation, he shared his vision of America as a “shining city on a hill,” echoing what Puritan leader John Winthrop had declared to his shipmates before landing at Massachusetts Bay in 1630. How can Americans fill such a tall order? President Reagan gave the answer in that same Farewell Address: “As long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours.” As President Trump boldly protects what the Declaration of Independence acknowledges as the Creator-endowed unalienable right to life possessed by all people, America is shining like a city on a hill.