A weakened GOP platform on abortion, led last summer by candidate Donald Trump, was cause for concern among pro-life groups. But now, a week into the second Trump administration, there is excitement for the moves he has already taken to protect life, and there is hope for more to come.
Frank Pavone, founder of Priests for Life, recently told American Family Radio that he believes Trump would sign other pro-life protections if Congress would act to codify them and get a bill to his desk.
In his first term, Trump became the first president to attend the annual March for Life. Though he missed Friday's event, Vice President JD Vance was there to represent his administration. Trump, on the road on disaster-torn North Carolina and California – on the same day – sent a video message to the marchers.
He also signed an executive order on Friday to end the use of taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion, rescinding two of Joe Biden's EOs that Trump says violated the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer-funded abortion.
"The order recognizes that, for nearly five decades, Congress has enacted the Hyde Amendment and a series of additional laws to protect taxpayers from being forced to pay for abortion," Trump's order states. "Contrary to this longstanding commonsense policy, the previous administration embedded federal funding of elective abortion in a wide variety of government programs."
Trump also signed a memorandum reinstating his Mexico City Policy of 2017 to stop federally funded abortion overseas.
"Already we're seeing the bully pulpit of the president being used to promote a culture of life," David Closson, director for the Family Research Council's Center for Biblical Worldview, told Washington Watch Friday.
In addition to the abortion policies, Trump has pardoned 23 pro-life activists who had been prosecuted by the Biden DOJ under the Freedom to Access of Clinic Entrances Act.
So much of Trump's first week just underscores his pledge for "commonsense governance," says Pavone.
Transgender EO also impacts life discussion
While the emphasis may be on Friday's actions to target taxpayer funds, Pavone thinks Trump's executive order regarding the gender confusion spread by his predecessor was just as impactful for protection of life.
That EO talks about "restoring biological truth" to the federal government.
"That has more impact on the pro-life movement than people might realize," Pavone submits. "Biological truth does not only tell us a man is a man and a woman is a woman. It tells us a baby is a baby."
And a baby in the womb deserves protection.
"Doesn't biological truth in federal government mean that we have to abandon this pretense, this mirage that somehow a baby in the womb deserving of protection depends on your choice?" the pro-lifer poses. "That's as absurd as saying your gender depends on your choice."
On the campaign trail, Trump said that he would not restrict access to chemical abortion pills, but just last week, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk – appointed during Trump's first term – ruled that Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho can proceed with a lawsuit challenging access to the abortion drug Mifepristone.
The states argue that the Biden administration's eased restrictions on the drug negatively impact abortion restrictions in other states.
"I want to see those safeguards put back in place," Closson said. "It's great start, but in the weeks to come, there is so much more the administration can do."
The next step for the pro-life movement
Pavone says "coerced abortion" is one issue that will be discussed when various leaders meet in Florida in the coming days.
He reasons that the recent ballot measures that have put a right to "reproductive freedom" in the constitutions of various states also means the right to continue a pregnancy.
"Yet research reveals that most abortions involve some element of coercion," he notes. "We could end most abortions if we pass measures requiring those abortion facilities to screen for coercion," to make sure the woman is not being pressured by the baby's father, one or both of her own parents, or someone else in her life to end her child's life.
As for what Congress will do, Pavone says lawmakers are "always taking the temperature" of how different measures will help or hurt them back home. But he thinks there is a "political appetite" for pro-life measures in America.
