WASHINGTON \u2014 Vice President Mike Pence told a crowd gathered in Washington for the annual March for Life rally that ending taxpayer-funded abortion is an important priority of President Trump.
He said the Trump administration would \u201cwork with the Congress to end taxpayer funding of abortion and abortion providers, and we will devote those resources to health care services for women across America.\u201d
Speaking to a crowd gathered near the Washington Monument, Pence said the nation\u2019s founders, in the Declaration of Independence, intended \u201clife, liberty and the pursuit of happiness\u201d to be for all Americans, including the unborn.
He accused the U. S. Supreme Court, in its landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that legalized abortion, of having \u201cturned away from these timeless ideals.\u201d
He said Trump would be nominating a Supreme Court justice next week who \u201cwill uphold the God-given liberties enshrined in our Constitution.\u201d
No president or vice president has spoken at the march before, according to a march spokeswoman.
Pence, who has called himself an \u201cevangelical Catholic,\u201d has long been a hero among anti-abortion activists and as governor of Indiana signed what was considered some of the strictest laws on abortion.
Organizers expected tens of thousands of people at the events.
Trump used his Twitter account to express support for abortion opponents attending the march.
\u201cThe #MarchForLife is so important. To all of you marching \u2013 you have my full support!\u201d Trump said in a tweet.
The March for Life is usually held on the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision \u2014 Jan. 22 \u2014 but it was pushed back this year because of Trump\u2019s inauguration.
This year, organizers believe they will see a surge of energy with the ascension of a president who is expected to move forward on anti-abortion policies, including defunding Planned Parenthood and appointing an anti-abortion Supreme Court justice.
\u201cHe\u2019s pro-life,\u201d Lynn Ray, coordinator of campus ministry at the Louisiana State University at Alexandria, said Friday as she stood on Constitution Avenue with a group from the university. \u201cSo that\u2019s good for us.\u201d
\u201cBeing that we\u2019re Catholics, we\u2019re very pro-life,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery step we take, we take for an unborn baby,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re not persecuting anyone, of course, just marching for the babies.\u201d
Madeline Runyan, 22, a senior at LSU, said she, too, was pleased with President Trump\u2019s stance on abortion. \u201cI\u2019m very confident in what he\u2019s doing to help this cause,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m really excited and optimistic.\u201d
The rally began at 11:45 a.m. The march kicks off at 1 p.m., heads east on Constitution Avenue, and ends at the Supreme Court.
Earlier, Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, listed her four demands for Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress:
\u2022 Appoint an anti-abortion justice to the Supreme Court.
\u2022 Make the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for many abortions in the United States, into a permanent law rather than the one-year provision that has been extended each year from 1976 to the present.
\u2022 Pass a law banning abortion nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
\u2022 Stop all federal funding for Planned Parenthood unless the organization were to somehow stop performing abortions.
The gathering comes a week after Trump\u2019s inauguration and follows last Saturday\u2019s massive Women\u2019s March on Washington.
Asked about the Women\u2019s March, Ray said:
\u201cI\u2019m all about women\u2019s rights, except when it comes to the baby. I believe \u2013 it\u2019s my opinion \u2013 but I believe a baby is a gift from God, and once the baby is a gift from God, it\u2019s no longer your body, but there\u2019s another body within. And that body has a right also.\u201d
The first march was held one year after the Supreme Court\u2019s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that recognized a right to abortion nationwide. Subsequent marches have been held on or near the Jan. 22 anniversary every year since.
The past eight years\u2019 marches have been grimmer affairs, with tens of thousands of anti-abortion activists gathering to show their solidarity with one another and restate their opposition, but with little chance of having their hopes fulfilled on the federal level.
This year, change seems not only possible but imminent.
March participants\u2019 anti-abortion stance is counter to the position held by most Americans. Nationwide, 57 percent say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, the highest percentage since 1996, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center poll. Thirty-nine percent say it should be illegal in all or most cases, according to the poll. Eighty percent of Americans who do not affiliate with a faith group \u2013 a rapidly growing portion of the population \u2013 say abortion should be legal, according to the Pew poll.
The March for Life is unlikely to draw as large a crowd as the Women\u2019s March or Trump\u2019s inauguration, but organizers said they hope for hundreds of thousands of participants.
In recent years, turnout has generally hovered in the tens of thousands. EventsDC said that 92 buses have obtained permits to park at RFK Stadium on Friday, compared with 450 buses that requested permits for Inauguration Day and 1,200 buses for the Women\u2019s March. Metro, anticipating a large crowd, will run extra trains on Friday, just as it did for the Women\u2019s March.
For decades, the march was run largely by a Virginia woman named Nellie Gray, who died in 2012. Always strongly Catholic-based and attended by many Catholic school groups, the march draws attendees from across the country and has in recent years attracted more evangelicals.
Nearly 70 percent of white evangelicals think that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, while 54 percent of Catholics say that abortion should be legal, according to the Pew Research Center.
Michael Ruane contributed to this report.
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