“The cruel injustice of abortion need not be forever”: Rep. Smith addresses crowds at 2026 New Jersey March for Life

The following are excerpts of remarks delivered by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, at the 2026 New Jersey March for Life in Trenton, NJ: I met my dear wife, Marie, more than fifty years ago in the pro-life movement. We spent many days lobbying here at our state capital. Today, like you, we remain hope-filled. Special thanks to Marie Tasy for her extraordinary leadership, courage, wisdom and tenacity in the defense of the weakest and most vulnerable. Thank you to each and every one of you for being here. Today’s March for Life is an engraved invitation to all of us to seriously recommit and rededicate ourselves, with love and compassion, to tangibly assist women—especially through the extraordinary work of pregnancy care centers—in order to protect their precious babies and their own lives from the violence and cruelty of abortion. We stand in absolute solidarity with First Choice Women’s Resource Center and remain encouraged by the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous 9-0 decision last April. As you know, pregnancy care centers are on the front lines of providing compassionate care to mothers and their precious children—offering free support and resources, which can range from pregnancy tests and ultrasounds to parental education programs and lactation consultations, and much more. 30 Members of the House and Senate and I had asked the Supreme Court to send a clear message to New Jersey and other states that this kind of bullying and infringement of constitutionally protected freedoms be given no sanction. Regrettably, New Jersey has not respected the Supreme Court decision. Tragically, pregnancy care centers are under siege, especially here in NJ, while abortion clinics flourish— since 1970, Planned Parenthood has killed more than 10.6 million babies by abortion nationwide—almost 1,200 every single day. That’s more than the entire population of New Jersey, exterminated by just one organization. NJ’s discrimination against pregnancy centers because they refrain from promoting or participating in the killing of unborn children by abortion is an unconscionable abuse of power. It is utterly shameful that New Jersey would go to these lengths to strip women of life-affirming options and support. It motivated the Let Pregnancy Centers Serve Act of 2025 ( HR 2226 ), federal legislation I introduced to prohibit federal, state and local governments from discriminating against the nearly 2,700 pregnancy care centers across the United States. Each and every one of these centers is an oasis of love, compassion, empathy, and respect, offering quality care for both mothers and their precious children. Yet state governments, like New Jersey, and some lawmakers seek to discriminate against pregnancy care centers by violating fundamental conscience rights to compel complicity in abortion. Fifty years ago, last week—on September 30th, 1976—Congress first enacted an amendment offered by the late, great Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois to prohibit federal Medicaid funds from being used to subsidize the killing of unborn children by abortion. During debate in the House, Henry said : “An innocent, defenseless human life, in a caring and humane society, deserves better than to be flushed down a toilet or burned in an incinerator. The promise of America is that life is not just for the privileged, the planned, or the perfect.” The Hyde amendment continues to ensure that this promise is still true today. According to Dr. Michael J. New of the Charlotte Lozier Institute , approximately 2.7 million people are alive today—and each year, another 60,000 evade abortion and survive—because of Henry Hyde’s amendment. That’s 2.7 million people—who would have otherwise been aborted if taxpayers paid for their demise—who have experienced the joys and challenges and given the opportunities to thrive. It’s truly sad that far too many politicians—who know or should know better—have abandoned unborn children and their mothers to the violence of abortion. With respect and a deep sense of urgency, I—we—ask them, including Governor Sherrill, to rethink and reconsider. Listen to others who once shared your view, but upon seeing the humanity of the child in the womb, changed. Listen to NARAL founder and abortionist turned pro-lifer Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine: “ I am deeply troubled by my own increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.” Listen to former Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director Abby Johnson , who wrote : “I was asked to participate in an ultrasound-guided abortion procedure… And I watched in horror as a 13-week-old baby fought and struggled for his life against the abortion instrument. I knew that there was humanity in the womb, and that what I had seen was the taking of an innocent human life. I realized I was on the wrong side of this debate, and so I ended up leaving.” Listen to Dr. Anthony Levatino : “I don’t remember exactly how long it was after Heather’s death [his 6-year-old daughter died in a car accident], but I started to perform a second-trimester abortion… and I got sick. For the first time, I didn’t see a right to choose, and I didn’t see what a wonderful doctor I was helping the patient with her problem. I didn’t even see the $800 I had made in just 15 minutes. All I could see was somebody’s son or daughter.” Listen to former abortionist Dr. Kathi Aultman : “I recognized that the innocent victim in all of this was the baby. Being unwanted was no longer enough justification for me to take the child’s life. And that was the end of my abortion career.” Listen to Dr. Alveda King, niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who, after having two abortions, became a powerful right to life leader and wrote a book entitled: How Can the Dream Survive If We Murder the Children? ABORTION IS NOT A CIVIL RIGHT! And listen to Elizabeth Gillette , who, after being pressured by Planned Parenthood to take the abortion pill, wrote: “I found myself on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood until I ended up expelling the entire amniotic sac with my baby — a recognizable baby inside. The trauma from this horrific experience still follows me today in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder. This is nothing like what they told me would happen.” That abortion pill—mifepristone—kills the baby by starving the child to death, while other methods of abortion dismember and decapitate the baby. We now know that mifepristone is extremely dangerous to women. The Ethics and Public Policy Center conducted the largest-known study of the abortion pill ever and is based on analysis of data from an all-payer insurance claims database that includes 865,727 prescribed mifepristone abortions from 2017 to 2023 and found that 10.93 percent of women experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following a mifepristone abortion. The real-world rate of serious adverse events following mifepristone abortions is at least 22 times as high as the summary figure of “less than 0.5 percent” in clinical trials reported on the drug label. Bottom line: we are a people of persevering faith in God, willing to bear any burden and endure any attack. We know that the cruel injustice of abortion need not be forever and that each day, despite setbacks, many unborn children and their mothers have, are, and will be protected. We have hope. We have much work to do. ###