Minutes into the National Pro-Life Summit, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, had convinced its more than attendees to leap to their feet. She was recording a video, and she had a message she wanted them to send to Donald Trump.
“THANK YOU MISTER PRESIDENT!” the crowd in the ballroom thundered, before bursting into raucous applause – complete with wolf whistles.
Every January, anti-abortion activists from across the country gather in Washington for the March for Life, the largest anti-abortion gathering in the US. In recent years, the march has been followed by the National Pro-Life Summit, which seeks to take the raw energy of the march and channel it towards specific organizations and policy aims. The summit, which is organized by the powerful Students for Life of America, held seminars on efforts to halt access to abortion pills, protect campus free speech and defend marriage as the union between one man and one woman. There was a pro-life job fair, where young people could learn about working for the Heritage Foundation – the architects of the famous Project 2025 policy playbook – as well as a massive room where they could pick up T-shirts with slogans such as “DEFUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD”.
There was one overarching theme that knit the summit together: thanks to Trump, the anti-abortion movement is on the upswing.
“For those of you that were advocating for an America that isn’t weak and pathetic, but instead one that has borders, one that defends the unborn, one that believes in liberty and freedom – it is amazing to see how quick America can get back on pace,” the Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk told the cheering crowd assembled in the ballroom. He continued: “You guys have an amazing ally in the White House in the fight for life. Both President Trump and JD Vance.”
In his first few days in office, Trump has already notched a few victories for the anti-abortion movement, as he reinstated the Mexico City policy limiting funding for overseas groups that perform or advocate for abortions, issued an executive order that declared that gender begins “at conception” and pardoned several anti-abortion activists who had been convicted of illegally blocking an abortion clinic. His Department of Justice also promised to significantly curtail prosecutions against people accused of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or Face, which has been used to protect abortion clinics from violence.
But he has not implemented more sweeping anti-abortion measures, such as using the 19th-century anti-vice law the Comstock Act to effectively ban abortion nationwide. As thrilled as anti-abortion activists may now be, there’s still work to be done – and a question lingering over the movement: what exactly is their role in his administration?
When he ran for president in 2016, Trump was powered by a coalition of anti-abortion activists who agreed to throw their weight behind him if he appointed “pro-life” justices to the US supreme court. He kept that promise and, thanks in large part to his nominees, the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. But by 2024, after abortion rights supporters won multiple red-state ballot measures, Trump was a far less reliable ally to the anti-abortion movement. He repeatedly flip-flopped on the issue, prompting criticism from prominent anti-abortion activists, including Hawkins.
Trump won the presidential election anyway. Not necessarily because people oppose abortion – several states that Trump won also voted in favor of measures preserving access to the procedure – but because Trump’s popularity may exceed that of the movement that once propelled him to the White House.
In an interview, Hawkins rejected the idea that Trump is more popular than the anti-abortion cause. (Fifty-four percent of Americans identify as “pro-choice”, while 41% say they are “pro-life”, according to recent Gallup polling.) While Trump has objected to signing a national abortion ban, Hawkins wants him to commit to defunding Planned Parenthood. She also hopes that Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has been tapped to head the Department of Health and Human Services, will be open to rolling back the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, given Kennedy’s skepticism toward pharmaceutical companies.
“I have a whole lot of damn bodies,” Hawkins said. “You can think we’re annoying all you want, but we have a lot of people and we haven’t gone away.”
In making a deal with Trump, Hawkins suggested that her group’s strongest asset is their organizing. She pointed to the anti-abortion movement’s recent electoral successes at the state level, such as the defeat of multiple South Carolina Republicans who blocked a total abortion ban.
“We’ve been around for 52 years,” Hawkins said. “We’re not novices at this.”
Even if Trump isn’t the anti-abortion movement’s most devoted champion, much of the movement appears ready to embrace Trumpism anyway. Some of the biggest speakers at the summit – such as Kirk, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany – are less known for their involvement in the anti-abortion movement than for their proximity to Maga. Several attendees donned Maga hats; one couple wore a pair in his-and-hers blue and pink. Tributes to Trump and Vance regularly punctuated speakers’ talks.
“I have never in my life seen a more important message – not just for the March for Life but for the future of our movement – than the one that Vice-President JD Vance gave,” the Heritage Foundation president, Kevin Roberts, told the summit attendees. “In particular, the vice-president put his finger on something that is necessary – just definitionally – for the survival of the American republic: We need more babies!”
The crowd burst into applause. “Woo!” someone cheered.