President Donald Trump explained why he decided to join a pro-life rally in Washington, saying that he felt it was time and because “religious liberty is under siege.”
“Religious liberty is under siege. If you look at everything that the folks here stand for that were surrounded by, thats under siege,” Trump told Raymond Arroyo of Fox News during an interview at the March for Life on Friday. The president added that he felt that his appearance would be good because it would “set a good tone.”
“I just felt it was a great time to do it,” he said, adding that the event has brought many people together.
Trump made a 13-minute address at the rally in support of the pro-life movement and the religious community, while becoming the first president to attend the event in person.
Presidents Ronald Reagan, in 1987, and George W. Bush, in 2008, addressed the March for Life rally over the phone. Trump delivered a speech over satellite from the White Houses Rose Garden in 2018 and sent attendees a video message in 2019. This time, however, was the first time a president spoke in person.
March for Life began in 1974 on the one-year anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, a Supreme Court decision that made access to abortion legal. One of the goals of the march was to rally until the decision was overturned.
During his speech, Trump touted the measures his administration had taken to protect the lives of unborn children, including reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which blocks foreign aid to non-governmental organizations that perform or promote abortion as a form of family planning, and issuing a reinterpretation of the Title X funding rules.
“From the first day in office, Ive taken a historic action to support Americas families and to protect the unborn,” he said. “During my first week in office, I reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, and we issued a landmark pro-life rule to govern the use of Title X taxpayer funding.”
In February last year, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a rule that “prohibits the use of Title X funds to perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning,” the department stated in a release. The rule also requires “clear financial and physical separation between Title X and non-Title X activities.”
As a result, Planned Parenthood, the countrys largest abortion provider, stated it will no longer draw Title X funds, forgoing an estimated $60 million in annual taxpayer funding.
He also said his administration was taking action to protect religious liberty as well, something he described was “important.”
“Religious liberty has been under attack all over the world, and, frankly, very strongly attacked in our nation. You see it better than anyone. But we are stopping it, and were taking care of doctors, nurses, teachers, and groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor. We are preservingRead More – Source
[contf]
[contfnew]
The Epoch Times
[contfnewc]
[contfnewc]
