On Wednesday, the Trump White House announced that President Trump would speak at the annual March For Life, making him the first sitting president to do so. The March For Life draws hundreds of thousands of people every year to Washington D.C. to protest the Roe v. Wade decision that mandated that states legalize abortion.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the announcement, and stated that Trump wouldn’t attend in person, but would speak live from the White House.
This is a moral move for Trump — Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is not only one of the worst legal decisions in American history, but one of the most immoral. Abortions have been declining markedly across the United States since their heyday in the 1990s; in 1990, for example, the Centers for Disease Control reported 1.4 million abortions, while in 2013, that number was 644,435, less than half. The American people have also become significantly more pro-life over the decades, thanks to the hard work of the pro-life movement.
Speaking at the March for Life is also a smart political move for Trump — it’s a low cost way to reassure his base that he still maintains their priorities, especially in light of new reports regarding his sexual profligacy while married. Evangelical Christians have been Trump’s most solid supporters, and they will likely continue to do so if he speaks out strongly against abortion, despite his checkered history on the issue.
There’s little doubt the media will savage Trump for speaking at the March For Life — they’ll suggest that he’s a sexist, since the media routinely conflate protection of the unborn with hatred of women, a nonsensical and deeply disgusting conflation. But that may be good for Trump, too: most Americans don’t see pro-lifers as sexist at root, and pro-lifers certainly won’t stand for such an insulting proposition.
Good for Trump. It’s beyond time a president stood with life as publicly and loudly as possible, and gave credence to a massive event the media ignore every year. Trump has a spotlight, and he’s doing a service by shining it on the March For Life.