The March for Life Education and Defense Fund, which organizes the yearly anti-abortion demonstration in Washington D.C., will focus its 2020 agenda on pushing for legislation that would mandate doctors provide medical care to babies who survive attempted abortions.
“’Born-alive’ is simple,” March for Life Action President Tom McClusky told press Tuesday. “This isn’t even an abortion issue. This is a baby born alive after an abortion. You can no longer define it away as a clump of cells or some part that can be removed like tonsils.”
The organization will push for legislation like the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which anti-abortion lawmakers have been trying to pass for years. The House of Representatives passed a bill when Republicans controlled the chamber last year, but Senate companion legislation introduced by Ben Sasse of Nebraska was blocked by Democrats. Republicans have tried to get a vote for the bill in the Democratic House this year, but have failed.
Part of the organization’s strategy is to push for voter registration in the hopes of stocking the Senate and the House with lawmakers who have anti-abortion records.
The organization’s most steadfast supporter, McClusky said, has been President Trump, who has called on Congress to pass legislation banning abortions late in pregnancies and appointed two conservative judges to the Supreme Court — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — creating a conservative majority more likely to revisit 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision that made abortions legal nationwide.
Separately, an early 2020 win for anti-abortion activists would be implementation of the Trump administration’s Title X funding rule finalized in March, which bars healthcare providers that receive Title X funding from providing abortion referrals and requires abortion services to be housed in separate facilities from birth control and other services. The fate of the program hangs in the balance as Congress debates the 2020 federal spending package due by Dec. 20.
Senate Democrats, including Patty Murray, are working to block the updated rule from taking effect.
After HHS announced the final Title X rule, several abortion providers dropped out of the program and decided to forego public funding, including Planned Parenthood.
McClusky said Tuesday that the implementation of Trump’s Title X family planning rule is crucial to March for Life’s mission.
“We’re going into 2020. If you think Congress hasn’t done anything so far, just wait,” McClusky said. “2020 is going to be what everybody is focused on.”
