Pro-life Americans welcomed some early initiatives from the new Trump administration, including a restoration of the Mexico City Policy prohibiting American funding of abortion overseas, the granting of pardons to pro-life protestors convicted under the FACE Act, and canceling a Biden-Harris administration policy of considering abortion as “health care,” which permitted taxpayer funding of abortion. 

Both President Donald Trump (by video) and Vice President JD Vance (in person) addressed the March for Life, with fulsome praise for pro-life goals and witness. That was a stark contrast to recent years, when the Biden-Harris administration made expanding abortion access a central part of their policy agenda. Vice President Kamala Harris visited an abortion business during her presidential campaign. 

During that same campaign, President Trump promised to protect abortion-pill access — which accounts for more than half of all abortions — as well as veto any federal abortion law. His policy was that abortion should be left to state law, and he criticized laws that he considered to be too restrictive. 

Vance’s speech at the March for Life was noteworthy for indicating a shift from the legal front toward a cultural and economic pro-life agenda. What then might a pro-life agenda look like under the second Trump administration? Here are five possibilities.

First, the administration will be rhetorically friendly to pro-life forces — as was the case at the March for Life. That friendliness means the cessation of prosecutorial hostility; the use of federal prosecutions to restrain pro-life witness will end. 

Second, as indicated by Trump’s address, he opposes federal efforts to enshrine late-term abortion access in law. There is no likelihood of that in a Republican-controlled Congress. At the same time, Trump does oppose federal legislation limiting abortion — which is also unlikely to pass Congress. In the immediate future, any pro-life legislative initiatives will focus on the state level. 

Third, as already enacted through executive order, federal funding for abortion will be restricted, returning to policies from the first Trump administration. 

Fourth, the long-time pro-life mantra that every unborn child be “protected in law and welcomed in life” — a phrase used by Father Richard John Neuhaus and President George W. Bush — has shifted in emphasis. As “protected in law” has taken a battering in a series of state referenda, “welcomed in life” is the new focus. Culture, not law, will be the focus.  

In the past, Vance spoke about the Ohio 2023 abortion referendum as a “gut punch.” In a red state, led by a massively popular pro-life governor, voters decisively approved a state constitutional amendment allowing abortion on demand before viability, replacing the state’s “heartbeat” law with a 57%-43% margin.  

JD Vance on X: “For pro lifers, last night was a gut punch. No sugar coating it. Giving up on the unborn is not an option. It's politically dumb and morally repugnant. Instead, we need to understand why we lost this battle so we can win the war.” 

That was only one in a series of pro-life defeats in state referenda. One of the few pro-life “victories” in state referenda was the 2024 defeat of a similar constitutional amendment in Florida, another red state with a massively popular pro-life governor.  

But it was not a comforting victory. The Florida amendment passed 57%-43%, the same margin as in Ohio 2023. The difference was that the legal threshold in Florida was 60%, rather than 50%. 

For Vance, who won his Senate seat with 53% of the vote, and for the Trump administration as a whole, issues on which red-state voters are 57% on the other side will simply not be political priorities. 

Fifth, and most important, the Trump administration offers its economic agenda as a recasting of the traditional pro-life approach. 

“It is a joy and a blessing to fight for the unborn, to work for the unborn and to march for life,” Vance said, and then specified how that fight and work will continue.  

“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,” the vice president said.  

“Now, it should be easier to raise a family, easier to find a good job, easier to build a home to raise that family in, easier to save up and purchase a good stroller, a crib for a nursery. We need a culture that celebrates life at all stages, one that recognizes and truly believes that the benchmark of national success is not our GDP number or our stock market, but whether people feel that they can raise thriving and healthy families in our country.” 

For many decades the pro-life movement has worked for the legal protection of the unborn — “protected in law” — while also operating a vast network of support of practical help for expectant mothers — “welcomed in life.” Pro-life pregnancy care centers provide good strollers and cribs, and much else besides. 

Vance’s speech — about “good jobs” making it easier to have a family — is a subtle, but very significant shift. The pro-life movement is not the same as a pro-natalist movement, which is what Vance explicitly endorsed: “So let me say very simply: I want more babies in the United States of America.” 

There are plenty of countries, for example, in Western Europe, which have liberal abortion laws and pro-natalist policies, seeking to make it economically easier to have children. Some of those countries provide direct subsidies or tax benefits for having children. It is possible to have an expansive abortion license and also to afford good strollers. 

Indeed, Ohio now has more expansive abortion laws than most countries in the world. Will an economic agenda that promotes affordable housing counteract that?  

Can efforts to support childbirth (“welcomed in life”) be advanced independent of legal protections for the unborn (“protected in law”)? Is there a pro-life approach that can be effective even in states with permissive abortion laws, like in Ohio, to say nothing of states like California and New York? 

Or is something different needed, and is the vice president’s speech an indication of that?