The Trump administration went all in on the March for Life Friday, reassuring abortion opponents and other social conservatives that their 2016 votes were not cast in vain, and setting itself up as a surprise champion for social conservatives.
While the president had to cancel a planned call to the march, Vice President Mike Pence addressed the event in person. That made him the first vice president and highest-ranking government official to make a physical appearance at the march in its history. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush spoke once each to the marchers remotely.
“President Trump actually asked me to be here with you today,” Pence said. “He asked me to thank you for your support — to thank you for your stand for life and for your compassion for the women and children of America.”
Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, the woman who managed Trump’s winning campaign, also spoke to the march. “To the March for Life 2017, allow me to make it very clear: we hear you, we see you, we respect you, and we look forward to working with you,” she said. “And yes, we walk, we march, we run and we endeavor forward with you.”
Both Pence and Conway have deep roots in social conservatism. Conway mentioned in her remarks that she was both a mother and a Catholic. She has long worked for conservative Christian clients. Pence is an evangelical who was added to the Republican ticket partly as an olive branch from Trump to the religious right.
“We are so proud of our friends and longtime allies Vice President Pence and presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway,” Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner. “Being pro-life and speaking out for the voiceless is part of their core beings.”
Susan B. Anthony List reported that its super PAC spent over $18 million in 2016 “to defeat Hillary Clinton and maintain a pro-life Senate.” The organization especially works to elect women who oppose abortion.
Trump weighed in directly through his favorite medium, using the March for Life’s hashtag as he tweeted, “To all of you marching, you have my full support.” He encouraged the media to cover the march, which participants have long felt isn’t given enough attention.
“It’s no secret that this administration and this president will do what they can to fight for life,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday.
Relations between Trump and social conservatives weren’t always so positive. “I’m very pro-choice,” Trump replied when asked by Tim Russert in 1999. He said he would not even ban partial-birth abortion, the subject of legislation that was garnering the support even of some Democrats who generally backed abortion rights.
But even back then, Trump suggested he disapproved of abortion. “I hate the concept of abortion,” he said after describing himself as “pro-choice.” “I hate it. I hate everything it stands for. I cringe when I listen to people debating the subject.”
“But you still — I just believe in choice,” Trump concluded.
At the time, Trump was considering running for the Reform Party’s presidential nomination against Pat Buchanan, an anti-abortion stalwart. Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, then the Reform Party’s highest-ranking elected official, recruited Trump specifically to counter Buchanan’s social conservatism. Trump ended up taking a pass and Buchanan won the nomination.
Trump’s only previous foray into abortion politics came a decade before, when he co-sponsored but didn’t attend a 1989 dinner for a former president of NARAL, an organization committed to legal abortion. He first publicly declared himself an opponent of abortion in 2011, when speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference — and this time flirting with a Republican presidential bid.
Abortion opponents have accepted converts before. Reagan signed a bill liberalizing abortion as governor of California but later became the first president to self-identify as pro-life and integrate the Religious Right into the Republican Party. George H.W. Bush changed his position on abortion before his first presidential run in 1980.
But Reagan explained he believed the abortion access law he signed would be much more limited than it turned out to be in practice, and said that result hardened his opposition to abortion. Author Lou Cannon later reported Reagan was talked into overcoming his reservations about the bill by his father-in-law, a doctor, and aides who wanted him to fulfill a 1966 campaign promise.
Bush had served eight years in an anti-abortion administration that supported a human life amendment and argued that the Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade.
Prior to Trump, Mitt Romney encountered the most skepticism about his antiabortion credentials because of his late conversion. He had supported abortion rights as a Senate candidate and governor in Massachusetts for more than a decade, and switched sides in 2005, just two years before he would first seek the Republican presidential nomination.
Romney’s Mormon faith and clean family values image helped him mostly overcome these doubts by the time he finally won the Republican nomination in 2012. Trump, by contrast, was thrice-married and twice-divorced. He used vulgar language and had no history of social conservative activism before running for president.
Trump’s position change was also more awkward than Romney’s. He told Chris Matthews he would punish women who sought abortions, countering years of anti-abortion activism and making social conservatives feel Trump was only telling them what he thought they wanted to hear.
In an interview with CNN shortly after launching his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump answered a question on abortion by saying, “Right. I’m pro-choice.” Host Jake Tapper followed up, “You’re pro-choice or pro-life?” Trump corrected himself, “I’m pro-life. I’m sorry.”
At the same time, abortion remained a live political issue while other causes like gay marriage were lost to social conservatives. Huge crowds march against the 44-year-old Roe decision, but nothing comparable happens with the more recent marriage ruling.
Social conservatives agonized over whether to support Trump during the general election, after he defeated their preferred candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in the primaries. Evangelical leaders who backed Trump early, like Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., were criticized. Others feared that supporting someone who used Trump’s campaign rhetoric or the lewd talk about women and sex on the leaked “Access Hollywood” tape would compromise their Christian witness.
“Never Trump” featured many social conservatives, and Trump was so unpopular with Mormons that Republicans feared (and independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin hoped) he would put Utah in play.
Trump won Utah. He also received a higher percentage of the white evangelical Christian vote (81 percent) than not only Romney but born-again George W. Bush in the “values voter” year of 2004 (78 percent). A Marist poll released earlier this week found that 95 percent of respondents who voted for Trump opposed taxpayer funding of abortion.
Since Trump took office, he has reinstated the “Mexico City” policy banning such funding for organizations that perform or promote abortions overseas — just like the previous three antiabortion Republican presidents. He has nominated social conservatives for key positions in his Cabinet, including attorney general. And Trump appears poised to nominate a conservative to the Supreme Court.
In a debate with Clinton, Trump predicted that Roe v. Wade would be overturned if his judges were confirmed.
“At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue we are in the promise-keeping business,” Pence vowed to the marchers Friday.
The thousands attending the March for Life may now have more reason to be hopeful that Trump will keep his word to them.
