Thousands of activists endured chilly temperatures to participate in the March for Life on Friday, demanding stronger abortion pill restrictions from the Trump administration as they walked to the Supreme Court.
President Trump delivered video remarks to marchgoers for the second straight year, recalling that he became the only sitting president to address the protest in person in 2020.
He took credit for appointing the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, calling it “the greatest victory” in the pro-life movement’s history, and for moving to restrict federal funding of abortion since returning to office a year ago.
“This is a battle that must be fought, must be won, not only in the corridors of power, but, above all, in the hearts and souls of the people,” the president told the cheering crowd in his brief remarks.
Activists from around the country who attended a noon rally near the Washington Monument greeted the president enthusiastically. The rally preceded a cold walk under cloudy skies along Constitution Avenue to the steps of the high court.
However, participants in the 53rd annual protest also expressed concern that telehealth prescriptions of abortion pills have undermined state-level restrictions in recent years.
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“I want abortion completely banned,” said Luke Reany, 17, who attended his third march with a group of 30 students from Ville de Marie, a Catholic school in Scottsdale, Arizona. “I want the pill removed from all stores.”
Several pro-life leaders voiced disappointment in the Trump administration’s failure to lift a 2021 Biden administration rule that let women obtain telehealth abortion medicine without an in-person doctor visit.
They speculated that the White House has delayed announcing a policy on abortion pills due to fear that the issue could hurt Republicans in November’s midterm elections.
“I think Donald Trump feels like he gave the pro-life movement what it wanted for 50 years by overturning Roe,” said David Bereit, executive director of the Life Leadership Conference. “But not taking action for political reasons puts women’s health in danger.”
In-person speakers at the rally included Vice President J.D. Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson. Several other Republicans joined them onstage, including Reps. Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Andy Harris of Maryland.
The vice president noted that he and his wife, Usha, are expecting their fourth child, building on his call last year for marchers to have more babies.
“We know that family is not just the source of a great joy, but it’s part of God’s design for men and women, a design that extends outward from the family to our neighborhoods, to our communities and to the United States of America itself,” Mr. Vance told the cheering crowd.
Several Republican lawmakers emphasized America’s 250th birthday celebration this July Fourth as a key moment for the pro-life movement to build on its victories. They promoted GOP efforts to expand child tax credits, encourage homeownership for families and restrict federal funds for abortion.
“And every single child deserves the child to fulfill their God-given potential, and it is up to us to defend that freedom and right,” said Mr. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who noted he was the product of an unplanned teen pregnancy.
Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who has attended every march since Roe became law in 1973, said he is “more impatient than ever” to see life celebrated “as a gift from God.”
He said that requires urgent action on abortion pills.
“The abortion pill mifepristone is baby poison that kills the unborn child by starving the baby girl or the baby boy to death,” Mr. Smith said.
Most speakers at the rally did not mention the pills.
In brief video remarks, Senate Majority Leader John Thune encouraged marchers to “stand up for the right for life.”
“You are here today to witness the great truth that every human being — every human being, no matter how small or vulnerable — is infinitely valuable and created in the image of God,” said Mr. Thune, South Dakota Republican.
Pro-lifers have labored in recent years to redefine the purpose of the March for Life, which started as a protest against the Roe ruling that legalized abortion nationally on Jan. 22, 1973.
This year’s theme struck an optimistic tone: “Life is a gift.”
“Never forget that the United States of America was built on the foundation of the right to life,” March for Life President Jennie Bradley Lichter told rallygoers, referring to the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, roughly half the states have moved to restrict abortion at various stages of pregnancy. Most of the new laws allow exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother.
The other half of the states have moved to expand abortion access, with several passing shield laws letting doctors write telehealth abortion pill prescriptions in restrictive states.
Abortions have risen steadily since the Dobbs ruling, building on a trend that started with expanded abortion pill access before the pandemic.
The pro-choice Society of Family Planning estimates that the U.S. averaged nearly 99,000 abortions per month during the first half of 2025, up 4% from 2024.
The society found that 73% occurred at clinics compared with 27% through telehealth prescriptions. That’s up from less than 10% of pregnancy terminations occurring remotely in the first six months of 2023.
Nearly half of all prescriptions mailed from April 2022 to June 2025 were issued by doctors in states with the shield laws.
Several pro-life speakers praised a Thursday announcement that the Small Business Administration would investigate Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. They said they hoped more states would take action to close the nonprofit’s clinics.
“We’re just getting the word out that babies shouldn’t be murdered,” said Ella Beazley, 19, who attended her first march with a group of 54 students from Cedarville University in Ohio. “Hopefully, all 50 states will close abortion down permanently.”
The Trump administration has not announced a policy on mifepristone, triggering speculation that the president is waiting until after the midterms to take a position.
“I’d like them to go further, but I realize they’re in a tricky position,” said Albert Meyer, who traveled with his wife of 27 years from New Jersey to attend their first march. “Politics is the art of the possible.”
Angie Meyer, his wife, urged the administration to follow the example of the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. She said his assassination in September inspired their trip to the nation’s capital on Friday.
“Be brave, be bold,” she said in a message to the Trump administration.
Medication abortions, also known as chemical abortions, commonly involve a two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol.
Pro-lifers have sued to block mail-order prescriptions for the treatment. They have also urged the Trump administration to fast-track a study of mifepristone’s side effects and restrict it on that basis.
In November, 175 Republican lawmakers signed a letter urging the Food and Drug Administration to reinstate in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone, which the Biden administration lifted during the pandemic.
Participants in this year’s march said the surge in pill abortions has become an existential crisis for the pro-life movement.
“I’m hoping the abortion pill will be taken off the market,” said Becky Walker, 42, who traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, for her second march. “It’s so dangerous to women.”
Friday’s protest was livestreamed on the EWTN Global Catholic Network and the March for Life Facebook page.
In their permit applications to the National Park Service, organizers estimated 50,000 people for the rally and 100,000 people for the march, the same as in past years.
Christianity and politics mingled once again in this year’s march. Bishop Irinej Dobrijevic of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Eastern America led a group of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders in a prayer on the rally stage
“Let them be born so that they can breathe the air that we breathe,” the bishop prayed.
Pope Leo XIV, who attended the March for Life as a college student, also sent “warm greetings” to the marchers in a letter read to the crowd.
“May Jesus, who promised to be with us always, accompany you today as you courageously and peacefully march on behalf of unborn children,” the pope wrote.
