Tens of thousands of pro-life people of various ages and backgrounds held handmade signs as they walked from the National Mall to the Supreme Court building on Friday, packing the streets of Washington, D.C., for the 52nd annual March for Life.
After several years of disappointment at the ballot box since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, many participants and speakers expressed optimism after the historic rejection of pro-abortion ballot measures in three states last November as well as the possibilities of additional pro-life actions over the next four years under the administration of newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump.
Powerful testimonies for life
The speakers who took the stage before the march, including activists, politicians, and individuals sharing personal stories, emphasized the inherent value of human life from conception, often citing their faith as a foundation for their pro-life stance.
All advocated for protecting the unborn, supporting women and families facing unplanned pregnancies, and highlighted the importance of providing resources and support.
Most notable among the politicians who addressed the crowds were Trump, who appeared via a prerecorded video message, and Vice President JD Vance.
Trump vowed to end the “weaponization” of law enforcement against pro-life Americans and highlighted his recent pardoning of 23 imprisoned pro-life activists. Vance, in his speech, called for a culture that celebrates life at all stages and proclaimed that the success of a nation is measured by the well-being of families.
“Let me say very simply: I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vance said to loud cheers.
“I want more happy children in our country. And I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them. And 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.”
Other politicians such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emphasized the importance of courage in defending the unborn, touting his state’s victory against a pro-abortion ballot initiative.
Other speakers stressed the importance of individual action and the need to change hearts and minds on the issue of abortion. Lila Rose emphasized the importance of personal conversations to persuade others to understand the value of life and called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood in favor of pro-life pregnancy resource centers that help women and families. Professional surfer and pro-life Christian mother Bethany Hamilton highlighted the need to support women and help them see the true value of life.
Marching for the unborn
Once the march got underway, students from Wheaton College carried the March for Life banner and led the crowd of thousands of pro-lifers down the march route on Constitution Avenue toward the Supreme Court building.
Members of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) — a Catholic nonprofit group — played Catholic hymns, such as “Ave Maria” and “Hail Holy Queen,” along with patriotic songs.
Members of Students for Life of America (SFLA) displayed a large banner near the front of the pack warning that “Chemical Abortion Pills Kill” unborn children and another that urges lawmakers to “Defund Planned Parenthood.”
“Chemical abortion has started to become the No. 1 [means of obtaining an] … abortion,” Alicia Foreman, the SFLA regional coordinator for the Carolinas, told CNA.
Foreman warned that chemical abortion pills hurt women and are dangerous to the environment. She said they are “so easy to obtain” and “easy for sex traffickers to use” and for “rapists” to obtain to kill the unborn children of their victims.
SFLA has urged state governments and the federal government to ban chemical abortion pills and for Trump to halt the delivery of the pills through the mail by enforcing the Comstock Act. However, Trump has committed to keeping abortion pills available.
“We have more work to do,” Foreman said. “We’ve got to keep pushing.”
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, who offered a prayer at the beginning of the rally, told CNA in the midst of the March that he believes this year “there is a renewed hope.”
“This is probably my 35th, 36th march,” he said, adding that he continues to attend each year “because it’s the most important human rights issue of our time.”
“A society that permits the killing of its children, that society has no future,” he continued. “We have to change our policies on this, and we have to win these state referendums.”
The archbishop emphasized that even though Roe v. Wade has been overturned, the pro-life movement still has work to do.
“I think there’s a renewed hope with the change of administration, with the freeing of the pro-life prisoners that were in jail,” Naumann observed as a crowd of students passed by.
“We have our work cut out for us, we’ve seen that,” the prelate said. “I’m from Kansas, and we were the first state to have a ballot initiative after the Dobbs decision. Unfortunately, we lost it, but at some point we’re going to come back and we’re going to win that.”
A Catholic University of America student marching with his fellow Cardinals told CNA he was marching for babies who face a grim statistical likelihood of being aborted.
“I march for many reasons,” CUA freshman Jackson Russell told CNA. “But the biggest one is that I’m autistic, and abortion attacks autistic people the most.” Russell, who is studying political science, attended the march with a large group of students from the university.
Pointing to research that has found that mothers who discover that their unborn child has autism are “more likely to get an abortion,” Russell told CNA: “My people are being attacked, that’s why I’m out here.”
Benedictine College students who traveled from Atchison, Kansas, to Washington, D.C., for the March for Life were jubilant, shouting pro-life slogans and carrying a large red-and-black banner through the streets.
Elizabeth Peterson, a junior year honors student at Benedictine, told CNA: “I’m marching because I think that babies have as much right to life as anyone else does, and that includes unborn children.”
“Unless there is equal justice for everyone,” she said, “there is really equal justice for none.”
Peterson, who has attended the March for Life five times, said she was “so proud” to have traveled to the march this year with Benedictine, which she described as “a very pro-life school, [and] very Catholic.”
“Everyone just feels really happy this year,” she said. “I don’t know what it is, but everyone just feels really excited.”
Peterson also said it was “cool to see the vice president speak,” adding: “I think just the mindset has shifted a little bit.”
Members of the secular pro-life group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) held signs in front of the United States Supreme Court — the finishing point of the March for Life — urging Congress to repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
The FACE Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, increased penalties for people who are convicted of obstructing access to abortion clinics or pro-life pregnancy centers — but has almost exclusively been used to convict peaceful pro-life demonstrators over the past four years.
Last night, Trump pardoned 23 pro-life activists who were convicted by President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, including PAAU Director of Activism Lauren Handy, a Catholic who had been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for her role in a protest.
“I am just so thankful that my friends are out [of prison] and that Trump pardoned them,” Avie Sark, a content creator for PAAU, told CNA. “Our friends were put in prison because of the FACE Act.”
Sark said the FACE Act is “used to criminalize and prosecute peaceful pro-life protesters,” but that “after the death of Roe, hundreds of pregnancy centers [were attacked and] … little to nothing was done about it.”
PAAU member Elise Ketch told CNA the FACE Act seeks to prevent protests in which pro-life activists are “putting our bodies between the oppressor — which is the abortionist — and the oppressed — which is the baby.”
“I want to bring back rescue, which is the protests where we [hold a] sit-in at clinics,” Ketch said.
Tyler Arnold, Madalaine Elhabbal, and Francesca Pollio Fenton contributed to this story.
