Pence fires up anti-abortion activists in Washington marchTens of thousands turn out for event on the National Mall in Washington DCVice-president Mike Pence praised “the election of pro-life majorities” in the US Congress
Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 23:37
US vice-president
Mike Pence fired up tens of thousands of anti-abortion activists who gathered on Friday for the 44th March for Life, celebrating a political shift in their favour with the election of president Donald Trump.
“Life is winning again in America,” Mr Pence told the demonstrators on the National Mall, near where Mr Trump was sworn in a week ago before hundreds of thousands.
The March for Life took place in the same area where even more massive crowds flooded Washington a day after Mr Trump’s inauguration in favour of women’s rights, including abortion rights.
Mr Pence, a longtime hero of the anti-abortion movement, is the most senior government official to speak in person at the rally, organisers said. As governor of Indiana, he signed what were seen as some of the nation’s strictest abortion laws.
Mr Pence praised “the election of pro-life majorities in the Congress of the United States of America,” Mr Trump’s upcoming nomination of an anti-abortion supreme court justice, and the president’s reinstatement on Monday of a policy that cuts off US funding to healthcare providers that promote or provide abortions overseas.
“It’s the best day I’ve ever seen for the March of Life,” he said.
Trump senior aide Kellyanne Conway was one of many women to address the demonstrators before they started their march from the Mall to the US Supreme Court, about 1.5 miles