Address at SBA List Campaign for Life Gala - June 3, 2019

Thank you. I'm very grateful. Thank you so much.

I'd like to share with you some insights—not too many—[and] introduce our beautiful keynote speaker tonight.

But first a toast. Susan B. Anthony List and Charlotte Lozier Institute team, please stand up. Come on. I'm not going to say it twice.

As you well know, that while I stand here speaking for the Susan B. Anthony List and the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a vibrant, talented and faithful team, most of it young, some getting married and starting families, has daily labored with me and Chuck Donovan with great energy and wisdom to accomplish all that has come that has led to this moment and are building ambitious plans beyond. I am grateful to each one of you and to our executive vice president, Emily Buchanan, and our strategist, Frank Cannon, who pilot the great ship. Don't sit.

Ordinarily, Emily Buchanan would be working with Allegra trouble-shooting, greeting, attempting to look like if she wasn't working. Instead tonight she and her husband are living the mission that she and we all love so much.

Emily and Andrew started the adoption and parenting process knowing how unpredictable it would be, and after much hoping and praying and waiting they recently received the beautiful surprise and wonderful news that a courageous birth mother and father made an adoption plan for their child, and the baby was on the way. And then as they were preparing for the arrival of this tiny precious person, they found out that their joy would be doubled—Emily was expecting. And if that wasn't enough excitement, their adopted baby, Caleb Andrew, came a month early just about a week ago, born across the country where the new family watches us via livestream. Yes not even Irish twins.

So if you could raise your glasses. Along with a grateful SBA List team, I ask you to raise your glass, look into that camera, everyone in the room, and toast Emily, Andrew and baby Caleb and his brother or sister on the way. And to Emily and Andrew, from Proverbs, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding;" (chokes up)…and you know the rest…"in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path." Cheers!

My friends, enjoy tonight but importantly, remember it. I can tell you Nikki Haley will be memorable. But in addition I want you to remember this night because of its significance. If you journal, write it down, and I believe you will look back and see and report it as a gathering that marked a moment—the pro-life movement's greatest opportunity yet to restore life in America.

And I want to thank each of you—financial supporters, prayer warriors, activists the SBA List board and team—for your role in our arriving at this beautiful moment and ask you now to rededicate in all those ways to push past this tipping point into victory for unborn children, their mothers and a restored pro-life America.

Think back with me to where we were a year ago at this time. The President of the United States of America stood with us at this gala, wholeheartedly embracing the life movement and our strategy.

Our top goals ahead of the 2018 elections were to win a pro-life Senate majority and ensure that if another Supreme Court vacancy should arise a second strong constitutionalist justice would be successfully confirmed. And you know what we can say to that—done.

It would be hard to imagine a more palpable sense of hope and optimism, but today we can honestly say that the pro-life movement is at our strongest position after almost a half-century of turmoil, now.

President Trump has governed as the most pro-life president in history. His leadership provided the winning edge in Senate battleground states all over the country. He has made unprecedented gains for life possible with the confirmation of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanagh, as well as all the federal circuit and district court judges that we've talked about today, victories that would have been impossible without the leader, McConnell.

The scales are finally tipping towards unshackling the democratic process in the states to act on the will of their voters and protect unborn children and their mothers. Enduring more than 60 million lives lost, boys and girls intended for this world, and unspeakable suffering of many around them, including their mothers, it's about time, don't you say? The time is now.

So going into 2020, abortion extremists are giving us an unlikely gift, are they not? They know that the Roe regime is unwinding and coming to an end. They are overreaching. I witnessed firsthand and we all saw their desperation in the Kavanagh hearings and again this year in states like New York, Virginia, Illinois and others. They pushed radical bills to expand abortion on demand through birth, even overturning the partial-birth abortion ban in Illinois and infanticide.

Democrats in Congress, including every single Democratic senator running for president, have repeatedly blocked legislation to protect babies born alive in failed abortions. This is a bill so popular and obviously humane, it is backed by 77% of Americans and a majority—almost a majority— of pro-choice Americans.

The unintended consequence of this overreach—they've unleashed a tidal wave of pro-life momentum. And the part of America that has been sitting on the sidelines is awakening to the human cost of failing to engage in this battle.

State lawmakers, acting on their constituents will, have been emboldened to advance pro-life legislation like never before, introducing more than 375 bills this year alone. In Missouri, Alabama, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, Utah, Louisiana—across the nation we've seen some of the strongest bills ever that would protect unborn children when they feel pain, when we can detect a heartbeat, or throughout pregnancies. Bills that stop discriminatory race sex selection and Down syndrome abortions.

We've seen protections signed into law by courageous pro-life governors, many advanced by women in our pro-life Women's Caucus. We will not let up on that momentum for one instant.

And let me ask you something here, tonight. When Disney and Netflix and the rest of the entertainment industry seek to punish and bully Georgia and other states for exercising their rights, will we stand with the people of Georgia and others who do so? You bet we will!

I say it's time for a huge pro-life road trip just to spend tourist dollars in all of those states. Let's do it! Come on with me. We'll get the Dannenfelzer van together and we'll go.

You've seen a preview tonight of our strategy for 2020 and beyond. The election cycle—this one—SBA List will spend $41 million this cycle. We'll work closely with our local allies on the most ambitious pro-life legislative agenda in history to aggressively challenge, erode and finally overturn Roe vs. Wade.

Well, and a couple of other things, too. We'll, on top of this, we'll be protecting our pro-life Senate majority, increasing our ranks in the House and reelecting President Donald Trump.

And you know we're only planning for what we call a post-Roe future because thanks to your prayers and sacrifices, hard work and faithfulness it is closer than ever.

Speaking of all of those qualities that I just mentioned I have the great honor now to welcome our distinguished guest tonight. She is someone who's played a key role in advancing the dignity of human life in her home state and in the Trump administration's priorities on the global stage, fighting for human rights and saving lives worldwide.

The Honorable Nikki Haley is a pro-life leader of inspiring strength, character and integrity. She's a model for what the Susan B. Anthony List looks [for] in our women leaders in politics, who gives voice to the millions of pro-life women across America. She rejects the now-outdated and failed feminist model that somehow abortion would be the great liberator of women.

As governor of South Carolina, she's done landmark legislation to end late-term abortions. As President Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, she championed the human rights of mothers and unborn children. She worked to get pro-abortion language out of conversations concerning the family in negotiations at the Commission on the Status of Women. She promoted the expanded Mexico City policy to stop taxpayer funding of the abortion industry overseas.

I have admired her for her leadership and how she's lived her life for years, and I am encouraged and I'm enthusiastic about her future endeavors.

I'm honored to introduce our longtime friend and this evening's keynote speaker. Please join me in welcoming the Honorable Nikki Haley.