Ahead of highly consequential Supreme Court decisions, a presidential election, and pro-abortion organizations’ attempts to execute a state-by-state takeover via abortion ballot measures, the pro-life movement is rallying at the National Mall on Friday, proclaiming: “With every woman, for every child.”
The theme of the 51st annual March for Life is designed to emphasize the important work of 2,700-plus pregnancy resource centers across the United States, which give much needed supplies to pregnant and new mothers and often provide things like ultrasounds, pregnancy tests, and even financial assistance for housing.
Volunteers Suzanne Bulle and Jackie Elardo organize baby clothes inside the material goods room at Informed Choices Pregnancy Resource Center in Gilroy, California. on March 13, 2018. The clinic carries clothes, from maternity to 12 months, diapers, cribs and other items for patients. (Nic Coury for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“At a New Jersey pregnancy resource center dinner, two women—through tears of joy—expressed their deep and abiding gratitude for the incredible love, respect, and care that persuaded them to reverse their decision to abort their babies,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) will say in his speech at the event, according to his prepared remarks. “They spoke of the pressure they had felt to abort. They spoke of how desperate—even hopeless—they felt.”
“Until they met the director of the pregnancy resource center, who reached out to both of them in a gentle and nonjudgemental way. They chose life—and thanked God, the director, and the pregnancy resource center for helping them avert the loss of their babies’ lives,” the remarks continue. “Then, two teenaged girls took to the podium and spoke about their lives—school, sports, friends—and their reverence for the sanctity of all human life. Near the end of their remarks, they turned towards the director of the Center and said if you didn’t persuade our moms to let us live, ‘we’d be dead.'”
Smith pointed to the 2,700-plus pregnancy resource centers throughout the country, calling “each and every one of them an oasis of love, compassion, empathy, respect, and care for both mothers and their precious children.”
“They—like all of us in this great human rights movement—stand with every woman and for every child,” he said. “We reject the violence of abortion—dismemberment, child beheadings, and abortion pills that literally starve the baby to death.”
Democrats and pro-abortion organizations have been targeting pregnancy resource centers — which do not offer abortions and are often faith-based — as “fake clinics,” with several states attempting to crack down on them for supposedly “deceptive practices.” At the same time, many Republican-led states have increased funding to these kinds of organizations, especially as lawmakers pass legislation limiting abortion.
“The Biden Administration and some governors and lawmakers continue to smear and misrepresent the noble work of pregnancy resource centers. We can’t allow that to happen, either,” Smith said.
Smith pointed to recent polling showing that 83 percent of all Americans, including 75 percent of Democrats, actually support pregnancy resource centers, as well as two pieces of legislation passed by Republicans in the House on the eve of March for Life.
“This week under our great Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership, two new important pro-life bills authored by two courageous lawmakers—Michelle Fischbach and Ashley Hinson—passed the House,” he said.
“Congresswoman Michelle Fischbach’s legislation prohibits Biden’s new policy proposal that discriminates against pregnancy resource centers,” he continued. “…[And] H.R. 6914, the Pregnant Students’ Rights Act authored by Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, requires colleges and universities to communicate and distribute information informing pregnant students of their rights, accommodations, and resources available to them.”
Smith ends his speech by slamming the “pro-abortion culture of denial” as a “modern-day flat-earth society” that “denies, devalues, and disrespects unborn baby girls and baby boys and trivializes the harm suffered by women.”
“The United States—and the world—must more fully recognize the breathtaking miracle of the newly created life of an unborn child and that women deserve better than abortion,” he said.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.