With Inauguration Day over and the Trump administration already ploughing forward with purpose, pro-lifers have begun to gather in Washington ahead of the March for Life on Friday. My colleague Nick and I headed into DC to join our friends at Created Equal to do some pro-life outreach to the Inaugural crowds and meet with pro-life activists coming into the city. It was very encouraging—the crowds who came to celebrate Trump were almost entirely friendly, and many stopped to say thank you to the pro-lifers. It was one of the most pro-life crowds I have encountered outside of a March for Life.
One fellow called out: “You don’t need to be here! This is a Trump crowd!” But of course, the MAGA movement is a coalition and incredibly diverse—Trump, who is himself pro-choice, has brought many pro-choice voters into the GOP, including many prominent MAGA figures. If the Republican Party is to remain a pro-life party, working to change minds on abortion is more important than ever, as is reminding conservatives that abortion is a fundamental issue that involves the taking of a human life. In the post-Dobbs era, most politicians would like to avoid the abortion wars. For the sake of pre-born children, pro-lifers cannot let this happen, and that will take hard work.
The media was out in force. Seth Drayer of Created Equal did several interviews with press and radio, and I re-learned one valuable lesson when a “reporter”—actually a social media content creator—asked for several trivia answers on reproductive issues. Because the signs with abortion victims were on camera and thus would hopefully be viewed many times online, we agreed. Unfortunately, she cut the discussion about abortion entirely, blurred the photo of the baby killed by the abortion pill so that the child could not be seen, and posted a viral video that included other interviewees not with the pro-life outreach team and spliced different answers onto question she’d asked.
For example, when she asked why we knew details about embryos, I replied: “Because we do pro-life work.” She added that answer to her question about how many menstrual products are used on average, (which, to be fair, we should have just ignored). She also asked for scientific explanations in response to non-scientific terms and attempted to portray Seth’s answers as if he thought the phrases she was using were technical ones, which, of course he didn’t (Seth is a very skilled pro-life debater). But lesson re-learned: Social media creators producing minute-long videos will not include context, will frequently splice, and will cut anything inconvenient. I am, however, quite disappointed that the photo of the baby killed by the abortion pill wasn’t included—I would happily trade looking silly for thousands of online views of that photo.
(As a totally minor aside, it was humorous to see myself referred to as “MAGA .” In fact, I have spent the last year incessantly warning, in many publications, that Trump is not a social conservative and that the pro-life movement will need to work incredibly hard to exert influence on the MAGA movement. See, for example, my columns in First Thingshere, here, here, here, and my essay in WORLD Magazine warning that the GOP is one of the last political bulwarks against the Sexual Revolution and why the new Trump fusionism could threaten that. This has not been a popular perspective to say the least. JD Vance has affirmed that social conservatives have a seat at the table, but when it comes to abortion, pro-lifers will have to fight for it.)
Thousands of others, however, did see the photos, and the Inauguration itself, as I noted in my report for The European Conservative, was encouraging. Hours after the Inaugural swearing-in ceremony, the website reproductiverights.gov, launched by Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services to facilitate abortion across the United States after the fall of Roe, was pulled offline. As of yet, there is no explanation as to why the website was taken down, but it is encouraging, nonetheless. Trump also signed an executive order pulling the US out of the World Health Organization, an organization that relentlessly pushes for abortion around the world. Pro-lifers and abortion activists alike, however, are awaiting news of whether Trump will reinstate the “Mexico City Policy,” which bans US federal funding and advocacy for abortion overseas. Each GOP president since Reagan has affirmed it (including Trump in 2017); each Democrat has repealed it. Trump has signed over 100 executive orders thus far, but the Mexico City Policy has not been among them.
Additionally, the executive order aimed at rooting gender ideology out of government was also excellent. Titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” the order is an incredibly comprehensive document that rejects the idea of gender as distinct form sex outright, lays out the correct terminology in great detail, and lists the various ways gender ideology will be eliminated. The first paragraph alone is simply excellent:
Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
Based on the responses I have seen from tireless activists and journalists working on this file, this order is everything they hoped for, and to see the language they have been advocating for with the signature of the president of the United States affixed to it is a tremendous victory. There is much work to be done, but this is a significant step in the right direction and could have potentially international ramifications. With the UK National Health Service rejecting puberty blockers for minors and the government of the United States rejecting gender ideology entirely, the shift in the gender culture war is real. It genuinely feels as if the consensus has shifted.
Trump promised at his rally that each day would bring news of more definitive actions. In addition to the Mexico City Policy, there is defunding Planned Parenthood, freeing pro-life prisoners sentences to exorbitant jail time under the unjust FACE Act, and the appointment of pro-life nominees. We will find out soon enough if this good start is something more.
