Trump addresses anti-abortion marchers
WASHINGTON — Demonstrators flooded the National Mall on Friday morning in anticipation of a historic moment for the antiabortion movement: the first sitting president to address the annual March for Life in person.
President Donald Trump did not disappoint them.
“Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House,” he told the crowd of religious-school groups and anti-abortion activists who packed the mall to hear him speak.
Past Republican presidents who opposed abortion sent video messages or delegated a surrogate to speak in their place at the march. But when Trump announced this week on Twitter that he planned to speak in front of the group, he made it clear he was intent on solidifying his support with socially conservative voters on the day House Democrats were making their final formal argument for his removal from office.
In his remarks, which he delivered on a gray day from behind a plate of bulletproof glass, Trump spoke about what was at stake in the next election.
“The far left is actively working to erase our Godgiven rights,” Trump said, adding that they wanted to “silence Americans who believe in the sanctity of life.”
As if to emphasize his message Friday, the Trump administration announced plans to withhold federal money from California if it did not drop a requirement that private insurers cover abortions. It gave the state 30 days to commit to lifting the requirement.
But at the march, it was Trump’s presence that was cause for excitement.
Roy Hagemyer, 62, a pastor from Mohave Valley, Ariz., who was handing out signs reading “Human Rights Begin in the Womb,” could barely contain his excitement before Trump’s speech.
“The president is going to speak here today, the first time in history,” he said, smiling. “That really puts a lot of horsepower behind our movement.”
Hagemyer said Trump’s support makes him even more optimistic about the future. “I firmly believe that in my lifetime we will see Roe v. Wade overturned,” he said referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that extended federal protections to abortion. “The tide is turning. People are starting to realize abortion is not something we should be doing.”
But Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president and chief executive of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, pushed back on that idea in a statement after Trump’s appearance.
“While Trump stands with the small number of Americans who want politicians to interfere with their personal health decisions, we’ll be standing with the nearly 80 percent of Americans who support abortion access,” Johnson said. “We will never stop fighting for all of the people in this country who need access to sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion.”
Trump’s relationship with the anti-abortion movement has been a transactional one since he entered politics in the 2016 presidential campaign. He has focused his efforts in particular on white evangelicals and Catholics, a critical part of his base in that campaign, who could be even more important this November.
In exchange for the appointment of anti-abortion judges, his unwavering support for Israel and his attempts to protect the rights of students to pray in schools, they have generally overlooked Trump’s own complicated past with the issue and his own history of three marriages and two divorces.
In an interview in 1999 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump described himself as “pro-choice in every respect,” but he officially reversed positions in 2011, when he was considering running against President Barack Obama and told the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, “I’m pro-life.”
But the president now routinely talks about mothers “executing babies” and brands Democrats the “party of late-term abortion.” And the political movement to end legalized abortion has become even more interwoven into the core strategy of Republican efforts to reelect Trump, by motivating white evangelical and Catholic voters.
For the anti-abortion movement, Trump’s appearance at the March for Life is its most significant moment since it began in 1974, the year after the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide. His presence signified just how mainstream he has made their cause, which for years lacked power and resources compared with Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups.
And for many in the crowd, seeing Trump and hearing his anti-abortion priorities far outweighed the impeachment trial happening in the Senate chamber at the other end of the mall.
Karen Rains, 42, a dental hygienist from Henderson, Texas, stood with her daughter, 19, and mother, 72, waiting to see the president. People in her small town, she said, were not paying attention to impeachment at all.
“It’s a waste of time; people are laughing at it,” she said, holding a pink “Women for Trump” flag.
“I can’t believe we are getting to do this,” she went on. “It’s still not real!”