Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) told a crowd of thousands at the 52nd annual March for Life on Friday to “show courage in defense of the unborn,” and took a dig at a New York Times (NYT) headline.
The NYT published an article on Tuesday titled “Undocumented women ask, will my unborn child be a citizen?” that aimed to cast a dark cloud over President Donald Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship, one of ten executive orders he signed January 20. In the article, the NYT tells the stories of several women who are in the U.S. illegally and are currently pregnant.
DeSantis entered the stage alongside his wife and three children to speak to the March for Life crowd, who gathered in frigid temperatures on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
The governor said to the crowd, “And here was [the NYT’s] headline: ‘Undocumented women ask, will my unborn child be a citizen?’ So, the New York Times is admitting it’s not just a clump of cells. Let’s welcome the New York Times to the pro-life movement. Wow.”
The NYT has a long history of refusing to say “unborn child,” instead preferring the term “fetus,” and has referred to a baby’s heartbeat as “embryonic pulsing.”
Nancy Flanders, associate editor for the pro-life Live Action News, noted the NYT‘s preference for the terms “fetus” and “embryo” in an article titled “The New York Times is suddenly using the term ‘unborn child.’ The question is, why?” published Saturday. Flanders explained:
While these are scientifically accurate terms, they are often used by the media with the intent to muffle any potential compassion that adults naturally feel towards preborn children — the most vulnerable among us.
Flanders referenced several stories in which the NYT used the word “fetus” in situations where, if the word “child” had been used instead, it would have “appeared to many readers as a repulsive lack of compassion and respect.” Flanders reported:
In 2022, the Times argued that abortion should be allowed when “the fetus is unlikely to survive.” Replace “fetus” with “child” or “unborn/preborn baby” and it becomes obvious what a difference language makes. If it had argued instead that a “child’s” life should be ended because doctors determined he had a disability or illness, it would have appeared to many readers as a repulsive lack of compassion and respect.
The Times also argued in 2022 that calling a ‘fetus’ a “child” could lead to changes in child abuse laws, in which women might be penalized for undergoing medical procedures “that harm a fertilized egg….” However, dealing with a side effect of medication is not the same as intentionally causing harm, suffering, or even death — as induced abortion does.
DeSantis, who is a champion of the pro-life movement, encouraged the March for Life crowd to ask their elected officials to protect the sanctity of life, and to remind lawmakers that sanctity of life does not depend on “poll results” or the “way the wind is blowing,” but that it is “an enduring truth and it represents the foundation of our society.”
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DeSantis told the pro-life supporters, “Here is what you should be asking your elected officials to do on the issue of the sanctity of life. Show courage in defense of the unborn. That’s what we need from the people that we elect to the office. The sanctity of life does not depend on poll results. It doesn’t depend on which way the wind is blowing.”
“It’s an enduring truth and it represents the foundation of our society, which in our original founding document, which we will celebrate next year, the Declaration of Independence declared that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, beginning with the right to life itself,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis reminded pro-lifers to be vigilant about what they hear in the media and from the pro-abortion movement because they “don’t tell the truth.” The governor used his own experience fighting for unborn babies in Florida, saying he and his team had “no choice to dig in” against the support for Amendment 4, which would have removed Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act and would have basically created a permanent right to abortion in the state if it had not been defeated in November. DeSantis revealed:
And so this was very difficult because what the pro-abortion side does, they don’t tell the truth. They rely on a blizzard of lies to try to be able to enact these things. So if you turned on TV in Florida last fall, you were told that Florida’s heartbeat bill somehow didn’t allow pregnant women to get healthcare when they had a miscarriage or all these other things, which were bold face lies. They never made the case as to why you should have elective abortions on demand up until nine months. They never made that case. They were focusing on running commercials that were lying about what we were doing in Florida. So this was difficult because, you know, people see it on TV and they think it’s true. So this was all hands on deck. So we decided we had no choice but to dig in and lead that.
The Florida governor encouraged the March for Life crowd by reminding them that running on a pro-life platform won him “the largest victory that any Republican has ever won in the history of the state of Florida,” and that “not one single member of the Florida legislature has been defeated for voting for Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act.”
“Let me tell you, since we were able to beat Amendment 4, Florida’s not only the place where Woke goes to die, it’s the place where babies go to live,” DeSantis concluded.
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