Jan 10, 2026 / 10:00 am (CNA).
A major pro-life leader is urging the movement to continue to press for protection for the unborn, calling on advocates to demand more pro-life policy even as the Republican party shows signs of wavering.
“We have to do everything we can to make sure that we’re communicating the moral position and also the political position,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said on Jan. 9.
Dannenfelser spoke to “EWTN News in Depth” anchor Catherine Hadro on President Donald Trump’s recent remarks in which the president urged the Republican party to be more “flexible” regarding the taxpayer funding of abortion.
“Now you have to be a little flexible on Hyde,” the president said on Jan. 6, referring to the long-standing federal Hyde Amendment, which has broadly prohibited taxpayer funding of abortion for nearly half a century.
Speaking to Hadro, Dannenfelser said bluntly: “There’s no flexibility on that.”
“Flexibility should be reserved for what you wear tomorrow, what you’re going to eat tonight, where you go on vacation,” she said. “This is a matter of life and death.”
Hadro noted that during his first run for presidency, Trump had outlined a slate of pro-life promises to voters, including the intent to make the Hyde Amendment “permanent law” rather than a legislative provision. Dannenfelser admitted that she engaged with Trump on pro-life issues during his first term alone.
“Once he got into the second term, he thought he was dealing with the life issue by basically saying, ‘States only, we’re not doing anything else on the federal level’,” she said.
“Now we see the consequence of such a position. It means you can’t even stand firm on the Hyde Amendment,” she argued.
Asked by Hadro whether or not the pro-life movement needs to “face reality” and accept changing political priorities with respect to the Hyde Amendment, Dannenfelser said: “I 100% reject it.”
“There is no chance that the power has left the pro-life position,” she argued.
“We’ve been here before. We’ve been here at moments where there was a weakening in the GOP spine, where we have to do everything that we can to make sure that we’re communicating the moral position and also the political position,” she said.
Dannenfelser argued that the pro-life movement is “at the best place we could possibly be to move forward” and continue advancing pro-life goals.
She admitted, however, that the movement is “not safe” in the current Republican party.
“I think communication is key,” she said. “We can’t hold back in demanding what has been promised and following through.”
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God bless Marjorie Dannenfelser! She’s absolutely right.
Once the pro-life advocates “compromise” and grant that it’s okay to kill *some* of the babies, then they’ve totally lost.
At that point, all that’s left is arguing about who dies first.
This “flexibility” on Trump’s part is the biggest disappointment of this presidency.
Either killing babies is wrong or it’s not.
It’s as simple as that.
I don’t think tht Pope Leo would be happy with President Trump’s position on abortion. Unless, of course, the President only said this to get support and he doesn’t personally hold this view.
We live in a democracy (actually a Republic) where we get to choose our leaders (more or less) and to a large extent the laws under which we live. And while people may not like abortion overly much (although some do like to “Shout [my] abortion!!”), I’m not getting the sense that the majority of people 1) want to completely ban it or 2) do what it takes to end abortion, which would be to largely end the fornicative/contraceptive culture that breeds it (no pun intended.) I don’t see that happening.
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The priests don’t condemn the sexual immorality. Neither do ob/gyns or the medical community. Fornication/promiscuity spread some nasty diseases, and abortions can do real damage to the women who have them, so you’d think the medical community would discourage it like they discourage smoking. (Actually, I imagine the medical community makes a fair about of money from people’s poor sexual choices.) Pro-life leaders certainly are not condemning sleeping around or contraception. That’s a very judgmental thing to do, and Christians “must not judge”. Shaming a woman who becomes pregnant out-of-wedlock is to invite her to get an abortion, and shaming a woman who has an abortion is mean.
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There isn’t much the politicians can do about any of this.
“We live in a democracy (actually a Republic) where we get to choose our leaders (more or less) and to a large extent the laws under which we live.”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never voted for a “leader” in my life, nor should any other self-sufficient adult be voting for a “leader”.
We have a House of Representatives, not a “House of Leaders”. They should be doing our wishes, not the other way around, but there’s a lot of people voting for the government to pick other people’s pockets to fill their own. Some are on Wall Street, some Main Street, and some in the ‘Hood.
As far as the form of government, on paper it’s a democratic republic, but a variety of distortions, based mostly on the unlimited power of expenditure (at least until buyers of “Treasury Securities” start demanding risk premia as a part of their returns) has allowed the government to become a democratically despotic administrative superstate.
I never voted for the existence or head of the IRS, the HHS, or any other of the three-lettered (if there was truth in labelling they’d all be four-lettered) agencies that have as much or more power over my life than my Congresscritter. Nor did I vote to eliminate the 3.5 gallon toilet or the 100 watt incandescent bulb that was replaced by those damn mercury swirlies that required haz-mat experience if you broke one.
I voted for Trump and would do so again. His trajectory has deviated from my wishes, but I always viewed him as 55-45 best option.
When I consider the cackling “yellow school bus” idiot that questioned a judicial nominee in 2018 about his Knights of Columbus membership and actually suggested it disqualified him-that made her my sworn enemy-even if all I can do is vote “no” if she attempts national office again, because I won’t even visit California-too hostile, too dangerous, too expensive. This is especially true since the witch was installed as the candidate in a weekend coup d’état, after it became impossible to conceal Biden’s cognitive impairments. The “No Kings” crowd were happy to have a Queen.
We don’t have a choice in voting, we have a selection. I am of the mind we are already in the state of slow dissolution, and it will become “kinetic” in my lifetime, but when I am too old to do anything but watch and lament.
No politician will save us. Only God has the perspective to tell us whether the world is worse now than before and at this point and all signs are that it’s going to get worse.
Trump may equivocate on Hyde, but Harris would have sought its abolition and sought 100% public payment for abortion.
“There isn’t much that the politicians can do about any of this.”
Well, it looks like President Trump is trying to do something: emasculate the Hyde Amendment if not do away with it completely.
Mrs. Hess above (12:01 p.m.) – But many (most?) people think contraception is the antidote to abortion.
The truth is that it is the gateway drug.