Diyar Guldogan
January 25, 2025•Update: January 25, 2025
WASHINGTON
Anti-abortion activists gathered Friday in the US capital of Washington D.C. for the annual March for Life rally.
The rally, which has been held every January since 1953, aims to pressure lawmakers to take action on abortion.
President Donald Trump announced on the eve of the march that he pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists convicted of illegally blocking access to abortion clinics.
"We will again stand proudly for families and for life," Trump said in a pre-recorded message.
Vice President JD Vance, making his first public appearance after inauguration festivities earlier this week, said the US is seeing the return of the "most pro-family, most pro-life American" president.
"We march to protect the unborn, we march to proclaim and live out the sacred truth that every single is a miracle and a gift from God," he said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the Trump administration's actions in the very first week of the new presidential term.
"House and Senate Republicans are committed to protecting innocent life because we know every single person is made in the image of God and has inestimable dignity and value," Johnson told the crowd.
His remarks came a day after the House, in a vote of 217-204, passed the "born-alive" abortion bill which requires any health care practitioner present to provide the same level of medical attention and treatment to a baby born alive during an abortion procedure as they would to any other baby born at the same gestational age.
