Trump Brings Life Back To The White House

The tens of thousands of pro-life marchers descending on the nation’s capital Friday have much to celebrate at this year’s March for Life. Topping that list is the return of a pro-life president. 

In his first week in office, President Donald Trump has signaled his commitment to remaining the “most pro-life president” the nation has ever had. Just ask Democrats. The abortion-on-demand crowd lost its wig over the Republican’s executive orders — declaring that there are only two genders — including one incorporating the “tenets of fetal personhood” by employing the term “at conception.” They went apoplectic over the White House removing a Biden era website promoting abortion services that had been created in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade — compliments of Trump’s judicial nominees in his first term. 

‘A Great Honor to Sign This’

On Thursday, in a victory for life and liberty, Trump pardoned 23 members of the pro-life movement persecuted by his predecessor’s politically-driven Department of Justice, armed with the weaponized Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances — or FACE — Act.  

As my Federalist colleague Jordan Boyd reported Thursday, the federal government had brought fewer than 100 FACE Act prosecutions since it was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton in 1994. Biden’s regime opened 60 cases during his abusive term, 55 of which targeted peaceful pro-life demonstrators. 

“Twenty-three people were prosecuted, they should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people — they should not have been prosecuted,” Trump said in signing the pardons on Thursday. “This is a great honor to sign this.”

‘We Prayed’

Among the victims of Biden’s anti-pro-life witch hunt was Paulette Harlow, who was 75 when she was sentenced to 24 months in prison for imploring women not to get abortions. She told the Daily Signal that she stood confidently as a voice for the unborn at her sentencing last year on charges tied to the FACE Act, which prohibits “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.” Harlow, by all accounts, was anything but violent or intimidating. 

“We prayed, we sang music, and we called out to some of the women and told them not to be afraid, that we could help them, that they could still change their mind, and that we love them,” the elderly woman with chronic health conditions told the Daily Signal in describing the demonstrations at late-term abortionist Cesare Santangelo’s Washington, D.C., facility in 2020.

Lauren Handy, one of several members of the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), which seeks to dismantle the “Abortion Industrial Complex through direct action and other leftist tactics,” faced the full force of the federal government. Handy initiated a “rescue and protest” at the D.C. abortion clinic, The Federalist reported. She testified at her trial that she was moved to demonstrate outside the killing floor after she saw a video of an unborn baby surviving an abortion attempt that was left to die. A federal judge earlier this year sentenced Handy to 57 months in prison. 

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, has long led the charge to terminate the FACE Act. He recently reintroduced his FACE Act Repeal Act “to permanently end a law that has too long been weaponized against pro-life Americans.” 

“Americans just spent the last four years being targeted by a weaponized justice system. The FACE Act was one of the primary weapons of abuse — being used to politically target, arrest, and jail pro-life Americans for speaking out and standing up for life,” the Texas Republican said this week in a press release. 

According to data Roy’s office obtained from the Biden Department of Justice, 97 percent of FACE Act prosecutions over the past 30 years were against pro-life Americans. 

“That is not equal protection of the laws,” Roy said on Thursday’s “Federalist Radio Hour” podcast. “Meanwhile, since the Dobbs decision, there’s been 91 pregnancy resource centers that have been attacked. What have they [the Justice Department] been doing? That bias is very clear and obvious.”

‘We’re Talking About a Human Life’

On Thursday, the Republican-controlled House passed the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which demands abortion practitioners offer the “same degree of professional skill, care and diligence for a baby born alive” during a failed abortion that they would during childbirth. Just one Democrat supported the bill, which passed 217-204. 

Democrats made the debate all about abortion rights and insisted that babies surviving an abortion is a rare occurrence. Republicans said the bill isn’t about abortion, it’s about preventing infanticide. 

“We are talking about a human life that is there in a hospital or clinic with doctors available and we’re simply saying doctors should be required to administer life-saving treatment to this child who survived. Whatever happened that led to that moment, we have a child that is sitting there deserving of the full, equal protection rights of the U.S. constitution. That should not be that complex for people to understand,” Roy said on the podcast. He had just stepped off the House floor following the vote on the bill.  

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats voted together in killing a similar bill granting equal protection to “any infant born after an abortion.” The bill received a majority of votes — 52, all from Republicans. But it fell far short of the 60 votes needed to move the bill forward. 

“I am disappointed that every Senate Democrat voted against my [bill], making something that should be common sense completely partisan for the first time,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., posted on X. 

‘No Excuses Now’

While Republicans control “the trifecta” in the federal government, they face an intransigent left that is wedded to the cause of “choice” — a pretty-sounding word for killing the unborn. Roy said Republicans need to lead on life, “there are no excuses now.” As always, victories ultimately come by changing hearts and minds, he added.

But the congressman said the American pro-life movement has no better ally than the president, and that’s plenty of reason to celebrate on this 52nd annual March for Life. 

Listen to The Federalist Radio Hour podcast with Rep. Chip Roy here.

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.