On Friday, President Trump will directly address the March for Life, a pro-life event that draws thousands of people to Washington, D.C., every year. He will be the first president to do so. This is significant, and it should tell us something about our current political situation and how the pro-life movement fits into it.

That this is a presidential first is remarkably telling. The March for Life began in 1974, a year after Roe v. Wade was decided, and since then, we’ve had five Republican presidents. Former President Gerald Ford never claimed to be pro-life, but the others did. And yet, it took the election of Trump (a man who, up until recently, was avidly pro-choice) to see substantive progress politically.