By Catholic News Service • Posted January 23, 2019

UPDATED – WASHINGTON (CNS) — The pro-life movement has touched hearts, changed lives and saved lives in the 46 years since the Supreme Court handed down its Roe decision legalizing abortion on demand, Vice President Mike Pence told the 37th annual Rose Dinner in Washington Jan. 18.

“Our movement is as vibrant as the values that we advocate,” he said, delivering a keynote speech at the dinner, which is sponsored by the March for Life organization. “We’re growing and we’re inspiring a rising generation with our message of generosity and compassion, and life is winning in America because of all of you.”

He repeated the message he delivered to the March for Life rally earlier in the day: “We’re the Pences and we’re pro-life.”

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He and his wife, second lady Karen Pence, were a surprise addition to the roster of speakers at the annual rally on the National Mall earlier that day. Mrs. Pence also was at the Rose Dinner.

The night before, the Pences also were surprise guests at a charity gala for Save the Storks, a pro-life organization based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Founded in 2012, Save the Storks partners with pregnancy resource centers around the country and provides vans fully equipped with ultrasound machines that take resources to women, especially those in underserved neighborhoods.

The vice president told the Rose Dinner attendees the pro-life movement “is filled with hope.”

“Today, as never before, I sense it everywhere I go in this country and meet pro-life Americans,” Pence said. “I see this rising generation embracing life as never before. This movement is filled with hope that we will restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law.”

“And it’s no wonder why you see that hope,” he continued. There has been progress on life issues in the last years alone with President Donald Trump in the White House, he said.

Right after he was inaugurated, Trump had reinstated the Mexico City Policy, making sure that no foreign aid goes to organizations that promote abortion, Pence noted.

“Because of your stand, because of your voices, because of your generosity, your compassion and your prayers, life is winning in America again,” the vice president said. “Life is winning because of all of you, because of the courage and tenacity of the hundreds of thousands who joined the march today and over all the years and the tens of millions of others they represent.”

And “life is winning because of the leaders you have helped elect from statehouses to the Congress to the White House,” he said.

In an interview with Catholic News Service on the day of the Save the Storks gala, spokesperson Victoria Robinson said her goal as a pro-life advocate — and the goal of the pro-life organization — is for pregnant women “to know all of their options” and to make “a fully informed decision.”

Four out of five women who visit a Save the Storks van for an ultrasound change their minds about getting an abortion after seeing the image of their unborn child in utero. Many women who visit one of the vans come there because the prenatal test is offered free, and Planned Parenthood, for one, requires women seeking an abortion at their clinics to get an ultrasound first.

Robinson, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, is director of external relations for Save the Storks. She’s an author, a TV personality, former radio host — and the mother of four. She told CNS that she would have five children had she not gotten an abortion over 30 years ago.

At that time, “I felt very deceived,” she said, because the people around her “didn’t trust me enough to make a decision and said, ‘This (abortion) is your only option'” as a young single woman with an unplanned pregnancy.

Her experience is what drives her to make sure women “are fully informed” before they decide. “Education is key and that will change the hearts and minds of people” about abortion, she said.