Former Vice President Mike Pence has urged conservative justices on the Supreme Court of the United States to “take action to restore the sanctity of human life to the centre of American law” at a conference on demographics in Hungary.
Addressing the fourth Budapest Demographic Summit in Central Europe’s Hungary, attended by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and leaders from other countries including Serbia, Slovenia, and Slovakia, President Trump’s former running mate spoke on a wide variety of issues on the topics of demographic decline, mass migration, and leftist efforts to undermine the nuclear family.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a man introduced by Hungarian Minister for Families Katalin Novak as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in this order”, however, he also put great stress on the contribution of abortion to the West’s demographic crisis, lamenting the fact that “here in Hungary, not long ago the number of abortions actually exceeded the number of births”, and that “over the last half-century in my country, more than 60 million unborn children have been aborted”.
“It’s an unspeakable tragedy, an unspeakable loss for our nation, for humanity,” he said.
The former Governor of Indiana was upbeat, however, noting not just the decline in abortions in Hungary since Orbán’s administration instituted a generous and growing package of reforms designed to support family formation, but the potential for change in the United States following hundreds of conservative judicial appointments under the Trump-Pence administration.
“For all of our challenges, there is renewed hope for life on the horizon,” he told the conference.
“As we speak the Supreme Court of the United States is preparing to take up the issue in the months ahead, and we may well have a fresh start on the cause of life in America.
“An independent judiciary is a bulwark of a free society, and our administration was proud to appoint nearly 300 conservatives to our Federal courts, including three new Justices of the Supreme Court, and it is our hope — and our prayer — that in the coming days a new conservative majority on the Supreme Court of the United States will take action to restore the sanctity of human life to the centre of American law,” he said hopefully.
“We must never stop working to create a world where every child, born and unborn, is protecting by law, and cherished in life as a precious gift from God, who said so long ago, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you’.”
The former VP further urged “every nation gathered here, and their leaders, as we strive to restore families, let’s be leaders for life,” adding: “I know that is a high calling, shared by so many here, especially our church leaders and religious leaders that are gathered, as well as Pope Francis.”
Recalling a 2020 audience with Pope Francis “that warned the heart of my Catholic mother”, Pence recalled how the Pope had “made a point to convey his solidarity then, as he did quite recently, with support for the cause of life in our country and around the world”.
“I was also pleased to learn, but not surprised, that the Holy Father reaffirmed the Church’s unwavering support for the efforts taking place here in Hungary and elsewhere to build stronger and more vibrant families,” he added.
The apparent success of the “woke” pontiff’s recent visit to Hungary took some commentators by surprise, given his arguably hypocritical opposition to the border barriers and general anti-mass migration stance adopted by the Orbán administration.
The Pope has lamented the decline of the family and of child-rearing in favour of more self-centred goals in the past, however.
“I heard it in my own family, from my Italian cousins here, years ago: ‘No, no kids, we prefer to go on vacation or buy a villa, or this or that’,” the Pope noted with sadness in 2015.
“And then, the elderly are left all alone.”
It is also true that the Pope has spoken out against abortion many times, and even personally intervened in cases such as that of Charlie Gard, a disabled child whose parents were taken to court by British doctors determined that they should not be allowed to take him abroad for treatment instead of allowing him to die.
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