Vice President Mike Pence spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday night. During his 20 minute address, he made several pro-life mentions, which were met with cheers, applause, and standing ovations.
About halfway through the speech, Pence referenced how President Donald Trump was “restoring the culture of life” in the United States. He also touched upon the plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare. Pence and other Republicans have criticized the healthcare law for many reasons, but pro-lifers have taken particular issue with its funding of abortions despite executive promises as well as a mandate requiring employers to provide all forms of contraception, including those which may act as abortifacients. Earlier this year, a federal court blocked a mandate which require employers to cover abortions.
The “intrusion into your business and into your lives” Pence referenced apply to these contraception mandates and abortion coverage requirements that a number of courts have found unconstitutional.
Pence didn’t merely make a passing comment or talk about repealing the ACA, however. He also spent a considerable portion of his speech directly discussing “the culture of life.” Pence saved his comments on the pro-life movement for the end, but he emphasized that he was “maybe most of all…grateful and honored to serve with a president who will uphold our Constitution and the sancticty of human life.”
“Because of Donald Trump, life is winning in America again,” Pence said, his comments a play on Trump’s frequent statements about “winning again.”
Pence reminded the crowd that Trump last month reinstated the Mexico City policy, which bars federal funds from paying for abortions overseas and from going to the organizations which commit or promote them.
The Vice President eagerly told the crowd that “we will make the Hyde Amendment permanent.” The crowd cheered, applauded, and many gave a standing ovation.
Pence also continued on reminding the crowd that, with his nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump fulfilled his promise to nominate justices to the U.S. Supreme Court “who will uphold our Constitution and all the God-given liberties enshrined in it in the tradition of the late and great Justice Antonin Scalia.”
It is the hope of the pro-life movement that the vacancy on the Supreme Court will help move the Court closer to overturning Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, which legalized abortion on demand and for any reason throughout all nine months of pregnancy in all 50 states.
As Live Action News reported during the election, Mike Pence was chosen as Trump’s running mate in July, to general delight of the pro-life movement and general distaste of the pro-abortion movement and media, who attacked him for an Indiana law which would have prohibited abortions based on fetal abnormalities and had ultrasound and dignified fetal burial requirements.
