The pledge made at the March for Life follows Trump’s pardoning of 23 pro-life activists.
At the 52nd annual March for Life on Jan. 24, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance vowed to stand with pro-life advocates in supporting children and families both in and outside the womb.
Trump, addressing attendees via video message on Jan. 24, voiced his support for their “very, very pure mission” to “forge a society that welcomes and protects every child as a beautiful gift from the hand of our Creator.”
Trump became the first sitting president to attend the March for Life in 2020. Highlighting his history of support for the pro-life movement and his role in the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, the president pledged that his new administration would “again stand proudly for families and for life.”
“We will work to offer a loving hand to new mothers and young families, and we will support adoption and foster care. We will protect women and vulnerable children,” Trump said, adding that he would also end “the weaponization of law enforcement against Americans of faith.”
The president’s comments came less than 24 hours after he issued a series of pardons to pro-life activists who faced criminal prosecutions and convictions after demonstrating outside of abortion clinics.
As his message aired, Trump was in North Carolina visiting with communities devastated by Hurricane Helene. From there, he was set to head to Los Angeles to survey the wreckage from recent wildfires.
Vance addressed the March for Life in person, making the event his first public appearance after being sworn in as vice president on Jan. 20.
Echoing the president’s remarks, Vance noted that the pro-life movement’s goal is “to protect innocent life, it’s to defend the unborn, and it’s also to be pro-family and pro-life in the fullest sense of that word possible.” That means addressing the concerns that often prompt young parents to consider abortion, he said.
While Vance acknowledged that many pro-life organizations already devote much time, money, and resources to such initiatives, he held that the federal government had failed in that regard.
“It is the task of our government to make it easier for young moms and dads to afford to have kids, to bring them into the world, and to welcome them as the blessings that we know they are here at the March for Life,” he said.
“We need a culture that celebrates life at all stages—one that recognizes and truly believes that the benchmark of national success is not our GDP number or our stock market, but whether people feel that they can raise thriving and healthy families in our country.”
Vance pledged that the Trump administration would work toward that goal.
Among the other prominent leaders to address the crowd was House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who revealed that he was the product of an unplanned teen pregnancy.
“I’m so eternally grateful that my mom and dad ignored all the people who told them to just ‘take care of that problem.’ And they chose to embrace life and to have me, the first of their four children,” Johnson said.
The speaker said that he often wonders what significant contributions the world has been deprived of through abortion.
“I often wonder when we as a nation will face that reality and turn our hearts back to the self-evident truths that we boldly proclaimed in our nation’s birth certificate in 1776 … that all people are created equal, and that all people are endowed by our Creator with the right to life,” he said.
Johnson’s appearance at the march followed the House’s passage of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act on Jan. 23. The law would establish a standard of care for babies born alive after a failed abortion.