WASHINGTON, DC – Less than a week after being sworn in as Donald Trump’s vice president, former U.S. Senator JD Vance Of Ohio told a national March for Life rally by the Washington Monument that the new administration was “with you, and above all, and above all We stand with the most vulnerable. »
“I want more babies in the United States of America,” the Cincinnati Republican said in his first public speech as vice president. “I want happier children in our country and I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them.”
Speaking at the annual annual rally after videotaped remarks from Trump, Vance took the stage on the National Mall to screams and chants of “JD,” from a crowd that waved signs with messages such that “Found Planned Parenthood”, “Choose Love, Choose Life”, “I am the generation of prolife. “
Vance praised Trump for installing anti-abortion federal judges and U.S. Supreme Court justices, and expanding the child tax credit during his first administration. He said the U.S. government should “make it easier for young moms and dads to have children, bring them into the world and welcome them as the blessings we know they are.”
“It should be easier, easier to raise a family, easier to find a good job, easier to build a house to raise that family, easier to save and buy a good stroller, a crib for a nursery said Vance, who has three small children. “We need a culture that celebrates life at all stages, that recognizes and truly believes that the benchmark of national success is not our GDP number or our stock market, but that people believe that they can raise thriving, healthy families in our country. “
Since being sworn in as vice president on Monday, Vance has introduced Trump in several Inauguration Day appearances. He moved into the official vice presidential residence for the Naval Observatory grounds, swore in members of Trump’s Cabinet as they are confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and swore in his own replacement in the Senate, the Former Ohio Lieutenant Governor Jon shook up the Columbus area.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told the gathering that having Vance and Trump in the White House represents a “new era,” noting that one of Trump’s first official acts was to issue pardons to “nearly two dozen pro-life activists wrongly imprisoned.”
“Together we are rebuilding a culture of life, and it starts now,” said Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana.
He said Trump’s executive order calls on the federal government to define sex as only men or women define life as beginning as conception, rather than birth. He also touted legislation called the “Born Alive Survivors Protection Act,” which passed the House of Representatives earlier this week in a 217-204 vote but lacked enough support to pass the Senate.
All Ohio Republicans voted for the bill, which would “prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the appropriate degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion. All Ohio Democrats voted against it. Democrats said medical providers are already required to provide this care and that the goal of the bill is actually to “target and intimidate reproductive health care providers and make it harder for women to access to life-saving health care,” as Illinois Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin said.
The March for Life has been held in January since 1973 to mark the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, established the right to abortion until fetal viability. It continued even after the Court’s 2022 conclusion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the Constitution did not provide the right to abortion.
Other speakers at the rally included Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, GOP Florida Gov. Ron Desantis and professional surfer Bethany Hamilton, who lost her left arm to a 14-foot tiger shark . U.S. Rep. Bob Latta, a bowling Green Republican, appeared on the rally stage but did not speak.
Sabrina Eaton writes about the federal government and politics in Washington, D.C., for Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer.
