Fox News Channel host Kayleigh McEnany praised the work of pregnancy help centers, discussed the sanctity of human life, and offered advice for next steps for the pro-life movement at the recent Students for Life of America National Pro-life Summit.
“I'm so passionate about the issue of life,” McEnany told the Students for Life crowd.
She shared how she got the call from President Donald Trump in 2020 to be press secretary during his first administration while she was in the car traveling with her young daughter, and that while this was the opportunity of a lifetime the prospect was formidable.
She would proceed with the thought that she was “here for such a time as this.”
“And I know it was a message that God intended for me to hear,” McEnany said, “and it's a message for everyone here in this room.”
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Heartbeat International and Pregnancy Help News were on the ground to raise awareness for the Abortion PIll Rescue Network and to cover the summit, respectively. Heartbeta is the largets network of pregnancy help organizations in the U.S. and the world.
From receiving her call form President Trump McEnany began to prepare for the job with an emphasis on prayer, such that when she walked out to the podium on her first day, she had complete serenity, attributing this those who had prayed for the administration.
McEnany shared that as she grew up her father would question her on her worldview. More important than any ideology, she said, was her church and coming to know Jesus Christ.
Politics and faith intersected for her most clearly on the issue of life, she said.
“So, this was something I was very passionate about,” McEnany said.
She went on to discuss the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court Stenberg v. Carhart decision where the Court ruled that a Nebraska state law banning partial birth abortion was unconstitutional.
Noting that it was less than 20 years ago that the Supreme Court had voted in favor of an argument defending the killing of a full-term child in this fashion, McEnany said, “It is a stunning thing to think about,” and the words in the majority opinion were “very jarring” … “hard to hear.”
Instead, she said, she cites the dissent from the late Justice Antonin Scalia, stating:
I am optimistic enough to believe that, one day, Stenberg v. Carhart will be assigned its rightful place in the history of this Court’s jurisprudence beside Korematsu and Dred Scott. The method of killing a human child–one cannot even accurately say an entirely unborn human child–proscribed by this statute is so horrible that the most clinical description of it evokes a shudder of revulsion.
McEnany told the Students for Life audience that as a country one day we will look back on our abortion laws and they will be next to Korematsu v. United States, which upheld Japanese internment camps, and Dred Scott which upheld slavery.
“So, two of the worst moments in American history, he's analogizing to our abortion laws, and he's exactly right,” McEnany said. “When you look at what happened between Roe and Dobbs, 63 million children were killed.”
“Sixty-three million. That is nearly one fifth of the current population of this country,” said McEnany. “So, imagine one in five, every fifth person in this row wiped away. That is what abortion has done to this country. People with potential souls, spirits created by God.”
Recalling that one of her Biden administration successors as White House Press Secretary was asked whether an unborn baby at 15 weeks gestation was a baby, that press secretary refusing to confirm, McEnany remarked, “what an appalling, appalling thing to say.”
She said she was shocked to learn during the deliberation over Dobbs from Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts that the U.S. was one of seven countries in the world, including China and North Korea, which allow elective abortion after 20 weeks.
“Do we intend to emulate China and North Korea?” McEnany questioned the summit audience. “Well, those are our abortion laws in this country in a Roe world. And they are still that way in several states, especially blue states.”
Even given the recent pro-life wins such as President Donald Trump pardoning the 23 pro-life activists, reinstating the Mexico City Policy and the Hyde Amendment, there is still a lot of work to be done, she said.
The pro-life movement is up against the opposition attempting to deny the science of life, McEnany said, citing failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams’ attempt to say there's no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks gestation and the media’s willing complicity in disseminating the falsehood.
“Social media and the media and science all converging to change the science that I thought we hailed during COVID-19,” McEnany said. “Let's follow the science, but not when it comes to the issue of life. That is what we're up against, people who are willing to change the facts of science.”
Despite this, McEnany said, “I think it's important as a pro-life movement that we stop and that we reflect on the beauty of life.”
Tweet This: “I think it's important as a pro-life movement that we stop and that we reflect on the beauty of life” - Kayleigh McEnany
She recalled how although she was able to get pregnant quickly with her daughter that things were different with her son and it took a little while longer, prompting her to get a little anxious and begin questioning.
The prayers of friends and loved ones, unsolicited, once again prevailed, and she learned to invite the Lord into things, believe.
Not long after, her personal trial with pregnancy unfolded dovetailing with the proverbial question of ‘where were you when’ the Dobbs decision came down.
One day in May 2022 she was doing show prep thinking the day would be like many others, until the Dobbs leak occurred.
“I couldn't believe it,” said McEnany. “I mean how horrible that this opinion was leaked clearly in an effort to intimidate the justices clearly. But if this was going to be the law of the land, what a moment that would be.”
“But it still was uncertain,” she said. “They were trying to intimidate the justices as we all saw.’
“And then June 23, 2022, happened and I was standing in my bathroom, and I said, Sean (her husband), come here. Come here,” McEnany recounted. “I felt a little rumble in my stomach, and I felt my son move for the first time.”
While she attributes this to her unborn son doing a celebratory dance, McEnany the work has just begun. Here, she offered next steps for the pro-life movement.
People say this is a politically tough issue and that the pro-life movement can't win, she said, but she disagrees, citing state ballot initiative wins in Florida, South Dakota and others, along with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine winning reelection after signing a heartbeat law.
“We can win,” McEnany said. “But we must speak about the issue, that is lesson number one. We have to own the issue of life, not run away from it.”
“Number two,” she said, “we need to expose the extremity of the left,” pointing out how one cannot find a clip of a Democrat listing a point at which they would like to regulate abortion.
“That clip is not there when they are pressed on this issue,” she said. “Most of the American public wants there to be a cutoff, not among elected Democrats.”
Third, McEnany said, “We need to challenge them with the science.”
But something else is most important and needs to be imbued to elected officials, she said, something those present at the summit already know.
“We must love the mother as much as we love the baby,” McEnany said.
“I speak at a lot of pregnancy care centers, and they know this all too well,” she said. “You don't need to tell them you need to love the mother because they do it every day.”
Tweet This: You don't need to tell pregnancy centers they need to love the mother because they do it every day - Kayleigh McEnany
McEnany cited a pregnancy help group in Texas who told her they had a mother come in pregnant and when they asked her the last time she had eaten the women responded that it had been days. Another example was a woman who came in and told them she could not have her baby because she did not have enough seats in her car. The center got her a minivan and she chose to have her baby.
These are the circumstances that illustrate how women facing unplanned pregnancy are in some of the most vulnerable circumstances, she said.
“We as a movement have to rally around that and help people to make the choice of life,” said McEnany. “And ultimately, we have to reorient our culture to see these beautiful babies the way that our Creator sees them.”
“I wanted to share that message with you just to say I wasn't just put here for such a time as this moment, all of you in this room are as well,” she said ... because of the passion you have in your heart, all of you, if you have a high in life, a low in life, a mountain, a peak of valley, whatever it is, God can use you for such a time as this.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News. Heartbeat is currently the subject of two lawsuits brought by state AGs concerning sharing information on Abortion PIll Reversal.
