The mission of the U.S. pro-life movement, by definition, is to move Americans toward the collective embrace of a comprehensively pro-life society where the right to life is enshrined in law for every human person, from conception until natural death.

To achieve this goal, the movement sometimes must call out political officeholders who describe themselves as being strongly pro-life but whose actions in some vitally important areas fail to square with that self-description.

This observation is prompted by Vice President JD Vance’s remarks at the Jan. 23 March for Life in Washington, D.C., in which he encouraged “good, honest and natural debates” about the most prudential ways “to use our political system to advance life.” 

We hope the vice president means what he said and that President Donald Trump can tolerate valid criticisms from the pro-life side without viewing them as ingratitude or disloyalty. 

Earlier in his March for Life remarks, Vance extolled the president’s pro-life accomplishments, highlighting Trump’s first-term appointment of three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade via the court’s Dobbs decision in 2022. He also enumerated some significant pro-life actions undertaken in the initial year of Trump’s second term.

President Trump will forever merit the pro-life movement’s esteem for his role in facilitating Dobbs. Pro-lifers are grateful, too, for the incremental gains that the administration has accomplished since January 2025, including a new ban on using federal funds for fetal-tissue research. 

But the unfortunate reality is that the number of U.S. abortions has climbed, not fallen, since Roe was overturned and Trump returned to power.

That’s largely a consequence of this administration’s unwillingness to roll back the Biden-era policy changes that facilitated much wider distribution of the abortion pill, which now accounts for two-thirds of all U.S. abortions. This inaction isn’t a shock, given that both Trump and Vance communicated support for the use of the abortion pill during the 2024 election cycle.

Yet the president has also repeatedly stated that he believes abortion law should now rest entirely in the hands of individual states, as Dobbs stipulated. To accomplish this, though, he needs to instruct the Department of Justice to mobilize in support of legal efforts by pro-life states like Texas and Louisiana to halt out-of-state abortion purveyors from shipping abortion pills by mail into their states. 

Without such federal assistance, pro-abortion politicians like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will continue to flout other states’ pro-life laws, courtesy of their authorization of these cross-state abortion-pill shipments.

President Trump should also press Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Food and Drug Administration to proceed with a thorough, science-driven review of the safety and effectiveness of the abortion pill mifepristone and to roll back the Biden administration’s rule change allowing women to receive abortion pills in the mail after a telehealth consultation, rather than an in-person doctor visit, which is a key driver of rising abortions nationwide.

It’s not unfair or politically biased to point out the Trump administration’s shortcomings with respect to the critical issue of abortion-pill policies. Committed pro-lifers have a duty to do so. This is not taxes or tariffs we’re debating; it’s the fate of defenseless unborn babies.

Similarly, it’s their duty to call attention to the profoundly mistaken decision to promote access to IVF treatments that result in the intentional killings of countless “surplus” unborn human lives. And it’s vital to push back against President Trump’s comments in early January that pro-lifers need to be “flexible” about the inclusion of the Hyde Amendment, which for decades has barred direct federal funding of abortion, in his proposals for health care reform. No, we don’t. U.S. taxpayer funds should never be mandated for the provision of abortion, full stop. 

As pro-life Americans, it’s our duty to speak up in defense of life on these matters — because if we don’t, who will?

The capacity of this kind of political witness to shift Republican presidents towards stronger pro-life policies has been proven in the past. It was the persistence and consistency of the pro-life movement that led Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump himself to change their views on abortion. 

That’s why the pro-life movement will continue to point out federal policy shortcomings, during the remainder of this presidential term and afterward, until the day when legal abortion has been completely eradicated from our nation. 

The critics are right: We will “never be satisfied” until that victory is secured.