Marjorie Dannenfelser will seek to mobilize “national and statewide pro-life leaders." | AP Photo Trump taps top abortion foe to chair anti-abortion coalition

The head of a major anti-abortion rights group is coming on board as chairwoman of Donald Trump’s pro-life coalition.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, is assuming that position on Trump’s behalf, her organization plans to announce Friday. Co-chairs are slated to be rolled out later this month.


Dannenfelser will seek to mobilize “national and statewide anti-abortion leaders, with a particular emphasis on people in battleground states,” to activate their “spheres of influence” in support of the Trump campaign, said SBA List spokeswoman Mallory Quigley.

The addition of Dannenfelser, a onetime sharp critic of Trump, to a leadership role on behalf of his campaign is the latest sign that Trump has consolidated support from socially conservative leaders who were initially skeptical of him.

During the primary, many evangelical and anti-abortion rights activists were concerned by Trump’s checkered record on abortion, including Dannenfelser herself, who helped lead “anyone but Trump” efforts, saying he couldn’t be trusted on the issue. He praised Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion-related medical services during the primary, and more than a decade ago, described himself as “very pro-choice,” though he has since come to oppose abortion rights. Trump also said in the spring that women seeking some forms of abortion should be punished, a remark he walked back but not before raising alarms among abortion rights opponents.

But over the summer, after Trump's selection of conservative Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as a running mate and several meetings with socially conservative activists, many of the most prominent leaders of that world have gotten on board. While there are holdouts — Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who was the favorite of evangelical activists in the primary, is a major one— at the grassroots activist level, leaders from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council to James Dobson, who founded Focus on the Family and now hosts the “Family Talk” radio program, are now supporting Trump.

Many describe the election as a binary choice between Hillary Clinton, a strong supporter of abortion rights who would appoint more liberal Supreme Court justices, and Trump, who says he is committed to appointing conservative justices.

The coalition is designed to give prominent socially conservative supporters of Trump a vehicle through which to act as surrogates, write op-eds and recruit volunteers.

In a letter on Trump campaign stationary set to be circulated to other activists, Trump will announce Dannenfelser’s new position.

“I am writing to invite you to join my campaign’s Pro-Life Coalition, which is being spearheaded by longtime leader Marjorie Dannenfelser,” Trump writes. “As we head into the final stretch of the campaign, the help of leaders like you is essential to ensure that pro-life voters know where I stand, and also know where my opponent, Hillary Clinton, stands.”

In the document, he also spells out his position on abortion: nominating anti-abortion rights justices to the Supreme Court; defunding Planned Parenthood “as long as they continue to perform abortions, and reallocating their funding to community health centers that provide comprehensive health care for women;” signing into law a bill that would ban many abortions after 20 weeks of gestation; and making the Hyde Amendment—which restricts federal funding for abortion—permanent law.

“Your help is crucial to make this contrast clear in the minds of pro-life voters, especially those in battleground states,” the letter reads.

