President Donald Trump encouraged participants in their opposition to abortion as he delivered his March for Life satellite address Friday from the Rose Garden; he assured them that “every life is sacred, that every child is a precious gift from God.”

The president told the tens of thousands of marchers that the ignominious Roe v. Wade 1973 Supreme Court case “resulted in some of the most permissive abortion laws anywhere in the world,” likening the United States to China and North Korea in its abortion legislation.

“Right now, in a number of states, the laws allow a baby to be born [torn] from his or her mother’s womb in the ninth month. It is wrong; it has to change,” Mr. Trump said.

“I’m honored and really proud to be the first president to stand with you here at the White House to address the 45th March for Life,” Trump said. “That’s very, very special—45th March for Life.”

After his address, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted that Mr. Trump was “the most pro-life president in the history of the United States.”

In his address, Trump noted that “Americans are more and more pro-life. You see that all the time. In fact, only 12 percent of Americans support abortion on demand at any time.”

“Under my administration,” he promised, “we will always defend the very first right in the Declaration of Independence, and that is the right to life.”

The president praised Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen for being “true champions for life,” while lauding the “beautiful cause” of the pro-life marchers: “to build a society where life is celebrated, protected, and cherished.”

“The March for Life is a movement born out of love,” Trump said. “You love your families, you love your neighbors, you love our nation, and you love every child, born and unborn, because you believe that every life is sacred, that every child is a precious gift from God.”

The president also thanked those who make sure that parents have the care and support they need to choose life. “Because of you, tens of thousands of Americans have been born and reached their full, God-given potential,” he said.

Trump said he strongly supports “the House of Representative’s Pain-Capable bill, which would end painful, late-term abortions nationwide,” while calling upon the Senate “to pass this important law and send it to [his] desk for signing.”

“I have also just reversed the previous administration’s policy that restricted states’ efforts to direct Medicaid funding away from abortion facilities that violate the law,” he added.

Trump invoked his predecessor Ronald Reagan for his “Mexico City policy” forbidding the allocation of U.S. funds to pay for abortions overseas, noting his reinstatement of the policy.

President Reagan made U.S. history when he established the National Sanctity of Human Life Day in January 1984.

In his proclamation of the feast, President Reagan said that the values and freedoms of Americans “rest on our fundamental commitment to the sanctity of human life.”

“The first of the ‘unalienable rights’ affirmed by our Declaration of Independence is the right to life itself,” he said, “a right the Declaration states has been endowed by our Creator on all human beings — whether young or old, weak or strong, healthy or handicapped.”

“Since 1973, however, more than 15 million unborn children have died in legalized abortions — a tragedy of stunning dimensions that stands in sad contrast to our belief that each life is sacred,” he said.

“These children, over tenfold the number of Americans lost in all our Nation’s wars, will never laugh, never sing, never experience the joy of human love; nor will they strive to heal the sick, or feed the poor, or make peace among nations,” he said, adding, “Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights, and we are infinitely poorer for their loss.”

American’s acceptance of abortion makes us poorer “for the erosion of our sense of the worth and dignity of every individual,” Reagan said.

“To diminish the value of one category of human life is to diminish us all.”

He said:

Slavery, which treated Blacks as something less than human, to be bought and sold if convenient, cheapened human life and mocked our dedication to the freedom and equality of all men and women. Can we say that abortion — which treats the unborn as something less than human, to be destroyed if convenient — will be less corrosive to the values we hold dear?

From 1984 forward, National Sanctity of Human Life Day was celebrated every year in America on January 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, until President William Jefferson Clinton abandoned it in 1983. President George W. Bush resumed the tradition after the Clinton years, and President Obama once again discontinued it upon taking office.

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