After Roe: an interview with the March for Life’s new president

More than fifty years after its founding, the March for Life stands at a paradoxical moment. Its original legal adversary, Roe v. Wade, has been consigned to history, yet the cultural, moral, and spiritual struggle over human life is far from resolved. If anything, the movement now faces a more demanding task: translating legal victory into cultural conversion. Under new leadership, and amid a striking generational shift towards religious seriousness, the March has become a barometer of a deeper realignment within Western societies, one that refuses to accept abortion as destiny, motherhood as burden, or family life as obstacle.

In this conversation, Jennie Bradley Lichter, President of the March for Life, a lawyer and policy expert who served in the White House Domestic Policy Council, and a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Harvard Law School, and the University of Cambridge’s MPhil programme in Theology and Religious Studies, reflects on leadership, generational change, global solidarity, and why the post-Roe era may prove more decisive than the decades that preceded it, and what this means for the pro-life movement on both sides of the Atlantic.

Jan C. Bentz: I would love to begin by asking how you became President of the March for Life. Was this something long in the making? Could you tell us a little about your background and how you came to be connected with the March?

Jennie Bradley Lichter: I have officially been leading the March for Life for not even a year now. I became President on 1 February 2025, taking over from Jeanne Mancini, who led the March beautifully for over a dozen years. She herself succeeded the founder of the March for Life, Nellie Gray, who led the organisation for decades. So this is a more than fifty year old event and organisation, and I am only the third leader in its history. That fact alone is very special to me.

Knowing how heroically courageous the women who held this role before me were is a source of great inspiration, and also something that makes this responsibility very humbling. As for whether this was long in the making, not in the way we usually mean it. Unless, perhaps, it was long in the making in the mind of the Lord. Looking back now, with the eyes of Providence, I can see how my professional and personal life over the years had been quietly leading towards this moment. But as is so often the case in our journey of faith, I did not see where it was all going at the time.

Before leading the March, I practised law for about fifteen years, mostly in and around Washington, DC. If you had asked me then how I would define myself professionally, I would have said I was a religious liberties attorney. Early in my career, I did religious liberty litigation, and I also worked as a lawyer for the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington for a time. Most recently before coming to the March, I served as Deputy General Counsel of the Catholic University of America.

Those roles meant I spent a long time working as a lawyer for Church institutions, which I found both deeply interesting and very satisfying. I understood that work as my way of supporting frontline evangelisation and teaching. For Church organisations to function well and pursue their evangelical mission, their legal and institutional foundations have to be strong and well ordered. That was how I understood my particular calling at that stage.

There was a brief but important detour from that path when I served in the first Trump administration. I initially worked as a lawyer at the Department of Justice, and then spent a couple of years helping to lead the President’s domestic policy team at the White House. That was a policy role rather than a legal one, and it exposed me to a wide range of issues: housing, labour, education, fighting human trafficking, and close work with Native American communities, among many others.

Even there, though, my focus consistently returned to pro-life policy, family policy, religious liberty, and the role of faith based institutions. Those concerns were always at the heart of my work.

Alongside all of this, I had always been involved in pro-life work in some capacity, volunteering and supporting initiatives, but I thought of it as something I did on the side. That changed after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Like so many American Catholics, that moment caused me to pause and ask more seriously how the Lord might be calling me to contribute more directly to the cause of life. It was a pivot moment for many of us, a question of how we were meant to meet this new chapter.

At the time, I was working at Catholic University, and with the support of the university leadership, I was able to launch a pro-life initiative on campus to support pregnant and parenting students, as well as faculty and staff who were building their families. It was a broad project aimed at showing what it looks like for a Catholic institution to be a genuinely supportive place for bringing children into the world, to lean fully into that identity.

Around the same time, I began praying outside a late term abortion clinic in my area, something I had not done for many years. It was a return to a more direct, embodied form of witness.

And then, while I was still very much in a period of discernment, asking what more I could do, the March for Life reached out and asked whether I would consider succeeding Jeanne Mancini as President. My initial reaction was hesitation. I thought, “I am a lawyer. That is not what I do.” But once I began praying about it seriously, clarity came very quickly. It became evident that this was where I was being called at this moment. And with that clarity came a lot of excitement, and a great deal of peace.

It has truly been the greatest privilege and honour, and honestly, a great joy, to lead this historic organisation. That is especially true because I have been attending the March for Life myself since I was a teenager. To now be entrusted with its leadership feels deeply personal, not just professional.

JCB: Could you give us a sense of the scale of the March? How many people typically attend, and what are you expecting this year? Some observers suggest that when pro-life policies gain political traction, enthusiasm can sometimes wane. Is that something you are seeing?

JBL: We are anticipating a really big and very energetic March for Life this year. The last few months in the United States have been sobering in many ways, but they have also been filled with a surprising amount of energy and intensity.

That is due in no small part to the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September, a young political activist who, especially in the later years of his life, had increasingly become a kind of Christian evangelist. His message had turned very deliberately towards the primacy of the family, the dignity of human life, and the importance of supporting motherhood. He was a strong pro-life messenger.

That tragic and shocking event broke something open in the country, particularly among young people, especially Gen Z, who were very much his primary audience. In the aftermath, we have seen what appears to be a genuine religious reawakening, especially among the young. Many people have returned to church for the first time in years, and we have seen this shift very clearly at our own events.

In addition to the national March for Life in Washington every January, we host state marches in capitals across the country throughout the year. This past autumn, we marched in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, just ten days after Charlie was killed. A few days later we were in Trenton, New Jersey, and then shortly after that in Columbus, Ohio, and in several other places.

At several of those events, we set attendance records for our state marches. The crowds were not only large, but strikingly young. As is always the case, there was a wide range of people present, seminarians, homeschool families, parish groups, school groups, but what stood out this autumn was the huge number of high school students, and many college students as well.

When I spoke with them while marching alongside them, chatting in the crowd, or simply reading the signs they carried, a pattern emerged. Many of them told me quite explicitly, “I am here because of Charlie Kirk. I heard his message. I heard him speak about the dignity of the unborn, the importance of the family, and supporting mothers, and that is why I am here.”

It was deeply moving to witness the way the Lord can bring fruit even out of tragedy. That groundwork, the hunger for bold truth, for moral clarity, for unapologetic witness, has been clearly laid.

We are living in a culture that, for many years, has degraded family life and motherhood. Young people have been told repeatedly to postpone children, that family life will get in the way of their flourishing or professional success. I think many young people are now actively looking for leaders and institutions willing to say the opposite, that these desires are good, true, and worthy of pursuit.

The pro-life movement has been saying that for decades. We have been here all along, insisting that having a child does not ruin your life. In fact, it often makes it richer and more meaningful. So when young people begin searching for that message, they find that we are ready.

All of this leads us to expect a very large crowd at this year’s March for Life. We do not ask participants to register, so we never know exact numbers ahead of time. That openness is part of what makes the March so powerful and grassroots. Anyone can get off a bus and join. But every indicator we have points towards a very big, very energised, and genuinely electric event.

JCB: With Roe v. Wade overturned, a victory many never expected, where does the pro-life movement go from here?

JBL: It is absolutely a victory. Whenever the truth triumphs, that is a victory. The decision was wrong the day it was handed down, legally, constitutionally, and of course morally, and it belongs in the dustbin of history. That is where it has now been consigned.

To hear the Supreme Court of the United States say clearly that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, and that it was time to correct that wrong, is a historic moment. The pro-life movement deserves enormous credit for that outcome. Yes, it required brilliant legal strategy to bring the right case before the Court. But it also required decades of persistence by the grassroots pro-life movement.

No other social movement in American history has sustained this level of public witness for so long. Year after year, people came to Washington, not to riot, not to burn anything down, but simply to stand there and say: this issue is not settled, and we will not stop showing up until this profound wrong is righted. That mattered enormously. One of the questions the Court asks when considering whether to overturn precedent is whether the decision in question has been broadly accepted by the country. And thanks to the March for Life, the answer was unmistakably no. Roe was never accepted as the law of the land.

So yes, this was a genuine victory.

But it was also a seismic cultural and legal shift. Roe had shaped American life for half a century. Entire generations grew up under its logic and its lies. As my predecessor Jeanne Mancini often said, some kind of backlash was inevitable. You do not remove something that deeply embedded without a reaction.

And we saw that reaction. After Dobbs, there were state level votes that did not go our way. There was polling that initially showed a swing towards pro-choice self-identification. That needed to be taken seriously. The American people were trying to tell us something, not that Roe was right, but that the cultural work had not yet been finished.

Still, the pendulum has already begun to swing back. You could see it even a year ago, during the 2024 election cycle, when there were significant pro-life wins at the state level. And then, of course, Vice President Kamala Harris built her entire presidential campaign around abortion access. The Democratic Party made a very explicit bet that abortion would be the decisive issue. They were wrong.

That election was complex, of course. No election turns on a single issue. But it was unmistakable that abortion did not carry the day. That marked an important turning point in the post-Dobbs landscape.

Since then, we have seen pro-life self-identification begin to rise again, particularly among young people. Polling over the last six months shows increasing opposition among Gen Z to abortion on demand and to unrestricted abortion throughout pregnancy. Those numbers, I believe, will continue to move.

So I think we are entering a moment of real promise for the pro-life movement, politically, legally, and culturally. A generation that is willing to question the inherited assumptions of its elders is also willing to question the abortion regime. And that willingness to seek the truth is one of the most hopeful signs we could ask for.

JCB: What challenges lie ahead?

JBL: There are still very strong cultural headwinds and, speaking in the context of a Catholic publication, also spiritual headwinds. Those two are closely connected.

Culturally, I do think the tide is beginning to turn, especially thanks to young people. But at the same time, every few weeks it seems there is another celebrity standing on an awards show stage saying something like, “I owe my career to my abortion.” Or a singer going viral online saying, “I look at my friends with children and that looks like hell.” Statements like that spread very quickly, especially on social media.

This kind of messaging, coming from people with enormous megaphones, is a real challenge. These are voices saying very clearly: abortion made me successful; motherhood would have ruined my life. We know this is not true, and there are countless counterexamples, but these messages still shape cultural imagination, particularly for young women.

That is why one of our major priorities at the March for Life is telling the affirmative story of motherhood, the beauty of it, and the way in which having children does not block flourishing but actually deepens it. That is certainly true in my own life. I have three children, and they are very much part of this work. My husband and I see my current role as our whole family’s vocation for this season of life. That framing matters.

There is also the long-standing narrative that abortion is healthcare. That story is beginning to crumble. Even mainstream media outlets have started to acknowledge that Planned Parenthood is actually very bad at delivering healthcare. The New York Times published a major exposé last year documenting unsanitary conditions, incorrect medications, poor follow-up care, and general negligence at Planned Parenthood facilities.

And of course, setting aside the moral catastrophe of abortion itself, this matters. The idea that abortion providers are champions of women’s health is simply not supported by the evidence. That narrative is weakening, and Congress defunding Planned Parenthood this past summer, for the first time in decades, was another major shift.

But there is still a great deal of work to do. What the pro-life movement does exceptionally well, and what we are committed to highlighting, is the concrete, compassionate support offered by pregnancy resource centres and faith based organisations. These are places that walk with women through pregnancy and beyond, offering material support, emotional care, and a renewed sense of dignity.

They let women hear their baby’s heartbeat. They show them ultrasound images, things abortion clinics often do not do. They help women rediscover that they are not alone, that they are capable, that they are worthy. So much of the messaging women receive says, “You cannot do this.” The pro-life movement says, “You can, and we will walk with you.”

Telling that story clearly, repeatedly, and truthfully is one of our central tasks going forward.

JCB: The March has inspired similar movements worldwide. Do you see these as fruits of the American movement, and are you in dialogue with them?

JBL: One of the most inspiring aspects of this role for me over the past year has been getting to know the broader international community of pro-life marches, exactly as you are describing.

Many of these groups have been reaching out to the March for Life in the United States for years, and now I have simply had the privilege of stepping into relationships that were already forming. It has been genuinely beautiful.

Some groups from overseas actually attend the March for Life here in Washington. Last year we had people from France, Ireland, and South Korea, among others. They come, observe, participate, and then bring ideas and encouragement back to their own countries. The South Korean March for Life, for instance, contacted us last spring asking whether they could use some of our video footage. They wanted to show excerpts from Vice President Vance’s speech at their own march.

We are also in regular contact with march organisers from Latin America, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere. Sometimes they ask us for practical advice, logistics, messaging, how to navigate legal or political obstacles, especially in countries where the movement is newer or smaller. Of course, every national context is very different, and our experience in the United States does not map neatly onto other countries.

But very often what people are really seeking is not technical guidance so much as connection. There is something deeply powerful about knowing that we are all engaged in the same struggle, ultimately a struggle between truth and falsehood, between light and darkness, and that we are not fighting it alone.

There is tremendous encouragement in that sense of shared mission. Even when our legal or political circumstances differ, the moral clarity of the cause unites us. And I have to say, I am often especially inspired by pro-life leaders in countries where the cultural and political environment is far more hostile than it currently is in the United States.

Seeing their perseverance, their willingness to continue marching, witnessing, and speaking truth in very difficult conditions, is humbling. It strengthens our own resolve. So while we may not often borrow operational strategies from other marches, we absolutely draw inspiration, courage, and spiritual energy from them.

Being part of that international community has been one of the most rewarding dimensions of this work.

JCB: Do you expect President Trump to participate in the March this year?

JBL: President Trump made history in 2020 as the first sitting US president to attend the March in person. I was able to attend with him, as White House staff at the time. It was an extraordinary moment. At this time, I do not have any announcements to share. If and when there is news, we will announce it jointly with the White House.

JCB: Finally, is there one encounter from the March that has stayed with you?

JBL: There are many, but one stands out from recent memory. At the Michigan State March in Lansing this November, a man approached me after my speech and asked if I remembered him. I did not, until he said his name. He had been a classmate of my brother’s in Catholic grade school in a nearby state thirty years ago. He told me he was praying the rosary for me and my team as we prepared for the national March. Moments like that remind you that this work, while demanding, is sustained by a vast network of prayer and goodwill. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, on earth and in heaven, and that knowledge, and their prayers, carry us forward.