After being sworn in on Martin Luther King Day, President Donald Trump wasted no time in tackling conservative priorities during what BBC, The Hill, and CBS called a “whirlwind” first week back in office. Along with immigration and DEI executive orders, pro-life measures were among the president’s first executive actions. Here’s the list of what the president did to protect life in the first week:
In the president’s inaugural address he stated, “The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.”
That promise was realized three days later for 23 Americans who were imprisoned by the Biden administration for peacefully protesting abortion. Trump pardoned pro-life mothers, grandmothers, and a Communist prison camp survivor who were thrown in jail for peacefully protesting abortion. These activists were serving harsh sentences, like five years for Lauren Handy who sought to expose evidence of full-term abortions in the nation’s capital.
When signing the pardons, Trump called the Biden Administration’s imprisonment of the protestors “ridiculous.”
“Twenty-three people were prosecuted. They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people. They should not have been prosecuted. This is a great honor to sign this,” he said.
While aboard Air Force One on Friday evening, President Trump issued an executive order directing all federal agencies to comply with the Hyde policy which blocks taxpayer funding for abortion. This directive is an essential step toward reversing Biden-era policies including those that fund abortion at veterans health facilities, pay for abortion travel through the DOD, and invite states to pay for abortion travel with Medicaid. This executive order also revoked the directive that creates an interagency pro-abortion taskforce. Now the Office of Management and Budget along with other agency heads will begin the work of restoring life-affirming policies that do not fund abortion.
Also known as the “Mexico City Policy,” President Trump reestablished the Global Protect Life policy on Friday night. First introduced by the Reagan administration, this rule prohibits U.S. “family planning” funds from going to any foreign NGO that performs or promotes abortion. The policy has been revoked by every Democrat and reinvoked by every Republican to occupy the oval office since Reagan. President Trump modernized the policy by expanding its scope in his first administration and did so again in the policy released last week.
During his first administration, Trump established a declaration among 30 nations to affirm the right to life and reject abortion on demand. After Joe Biden, withdrew from the Geneva Consensus Declaration, President Trump rejoined to reaffirm the commitment of nations to protect their most vulnerable citizens, including unborn children, while safeguarding sovereign countries against pressure from the United Nations and others to strip those protections away.
In 2020 President Trump made history as the first president to speak in person at the March for Life. On Friday at the 52nd annual March For Life, he and Vice President J.D. Vance continued the tradition with Trump offering remarks via video and Vance giving a keynote address. Based on a National Parks Services permit application, around 150,000 pro-lifers showed up to march.
Vance said in his speech:
“Our society, our country has not yet stepped up in the way you have; and our government certainly has failed in that important responsibility. We failed a generation not only by permitting a culture of abortion on demand but also by neglecting to help young parents achieve the ingredients they need to [live] a happy and meaningful life. . . .
“So let me say very simply: I want more babies in the United States of America. I want more happy children in our country, and I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them. And it is the task of our government to make it easier for young moms and dads to afford to have kids, to bring them into the world and to welcome them as the blessings that we know they are here at the March for Life.”
Last week, the House and the Senate took up the Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act to protect newborns from infanticide. The bill passed the House but failed to achieve cloture in the Senate, with only one Democrat in the House voting in support. Thirty-one states do not adequately protect the lives of infants who survive abortions, including Minnesota where 8 babies died after Gov. Walz removed the state’s born-alive protection.
In response, the White House issued a Statement of Administrative Policy on the bill saying:
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize the human dignity and inherent worth of every newborn or other infant child, regardless of prematurity or disability, and to ensure for each child due protection under the law. A baby that survives an abortion and is born alive into this world should be treated just like any other baby born alive. H.R. 21 would properly amend current law to ensure that the life of one baby is not treated as being more or less valuable than another.”
On day one, President Trump withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization. WHO has a long history of pushing abortion around the globe. The organization even has an abortion app to help abortionists perform more abortions.
Within hours of being sworn in, the White House took down reproductiverights.org. This was an HHS website the Biden administration created the year Roe was overturned to promote abortion. Additionally, HHS has taken down all abortion-related content from their website that was posted under Biden. The newest search results show items from President Trump’s administration in 2020.
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