NASHVILLE (BP) – The latest episode of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission podcast features a conversation with the president of the March for Life in anticipation of the upcoming national rally in late January.
ERLC Interim President Gary Hollingsworth spoke with Jennie Bradley Lichter, who became president of the March for Life in February 2025, about the importance of the pro-life cause and why Southern Baptists should be involved with the national March for Life.
Lichter began by explaining there are a lot of misconceptions about the pro-life movement in a post-Dobbs America, but the reality is that the movement is ultimately pro-baby and pro-women.
“The truth of the pro-life movement is that it isn’t about taking away people’s rights or bossing women around,” Lichter explained. “It is about love, and it’s born out of a deep conviction, and for many of us a really deep conviction of faith, that God created every human person with dignity and value and the right to life.
“The movement is also built on love for moms and their babies and the deep desire to support women who are pregnant and empower them to step into their motherhood and find within them their God-given ability to carry a baby and be a mom.”
Lichter said this year’s march, which will be held in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23, will have the theme “Life is a Gift.”
She said the March for Life and the pro-life movement is still hard at work communicating a message of hope to pregnant women so they know they can choose life.
“Something like 60 percent of post-abortive women have said in polling that they would’ve preferred to choose life for their baby if they had the emotional and financial support that they felt like they needed at the time,” Lichter said.
“That is so deeply tragic, and the March for Life team and I do everything we can to use our platform to shine a light on the good work done by faith-based pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes and churches and other wonderful ministries and organizations in our country that are totally devoted to helping pregnant women.
“That’s a big challenge for our movement and we are trying to be really strategic about how we use our resources and our platform here at the March for Life to get the word out about what is available to pregnant women and how there are so many people who want to come alongside them, walk with them and help them step into their motherhood.”
Lichter spoke about the important role that Southern Baptists have played in the pro-life movement and commended them for their participation in the March for Life.
“Southern Baptists have such a huge presence in the United States,” Lichter said. “They have a strong presence both at the level of local communities and local churches, and nationally through the Southern Baptist Convention and the ERLC, which is a really important public policy entity. So as a group, the presence of Southern Baptists is really powerful and them joining in with the March for Life and the pro-life movement is really powerful.
“I’m very grateful for the strong, unflagging, unyielding witness of Southern Baptists and the ERLC over the years about the dignity of human life.”
ERLC staff have faithfully attended the national March for Life for many years in addition to the entity’s consistent pro-life advocacy in the realm of public policy, most recently highlighted by its efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.
The ERLC plans to gather a group of staff members and SBC pastors and ministry leaders to attend this year’s March, which takes place just days after Sanctity of Life Sunday on the SBC calendar.
Lichter began attending the national March as a college student in 2001 and has wide-ranging legal and policy experience in the public, private and nonprofit sectors, including at the highest levels of the federal government.
During the first Trump administration, she served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Through this role, she led policy initiatives across the federal government to defend the dignity of life.
Lichter became president of the March for Life last year upon the retirement of previous president Jeanne Mancini who oversaw more than 10 national March for Life rallies.
The march originally started by a woman named Nellie Gray in 1974 in response to the Roe v. WadeSupreme Court decision the previous year, Lichter said.
What originally started as a small gathering with Gray and a few friends eventually grew to be the largest annual human rights demonstration and what Lichter identifies as the pro-life movement’s greatest opportunity for public witness.
“I think it’s really remarkable that no other social movement that I’m aware of has mustered the deep persistence and hopefulness of the pro-life movement,” Lichter said.
“I think there is a lesson in here for all of us in that something that starts with one person can truly change the world.”
The full podcast episode can be heard here.
More information about the March for Life can be found here.
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