Donald Trump will speak at the March for Life in Washington on Friday (Picture: AP)

Donald Trump will become the first US President to attend an annual anti-abortion gathering, the White House has confirmed.

The Republican leader will address the March for Life in Washington on Friday, just weeks before the Supreme Court makes a major ruling on abortion.

In past years, Trump has sent members of his administration to speak at the march and has spoken via video link.

This time he will appear in person and tweeted: ‘See you on Friday…Big Crowd.’


President of March for Life, Jeanne Mancini, said: ‘We are so excited for him to experience in person how passionate our marchers are about life and protecting the unborn.’

See you on Friday…Big Crowd! https://t.co/MFyWLG4HFZ — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2020



This year’s rally comes just weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court hears its first major abortion case since the addition of two justices appointed by Trump.

The case is likely to reveal whether the court – more conservative since the arrival of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – is now willing to weaken the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a nationwide right to abortion.

Across the US, there is a wave of federal and state abortion restrictions coming into place.

The Supreme Court is set to rule on March 4 about a new law in Louisiana that could effectively see it become the first state without legal abortion access.

The United States Supreme Court (Front L-R) Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Jr., (Back L-R) Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh will rule on the abortion case in Louisiana on March 4th (Picture: Getty)

The ‘Unsafe Abortion Protection Act’ is demanding that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

Supporters say it is to provide ‘continuity of care’ in the event of an emergency.

However, only two abortion doctors in the state have ever been successful in gaining the added medical rights.

One of whom no longer practices and the other said he would retire if the Supreme Court ruling left his as the ‘last man standing.’

That retirement would close the last abortion clinic in the state and, pro-choice activists say, overturn Roe v Wade by regulating it out of existence.

The Trump administration has sided with Louisiana in the case, arguing in a recent Justice Department brief that the contested law should be accepted.

Nancy Northup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said it was ‘alarming’ that the administration – along with more than 200 Republican members of Congress – now supports a restriction that was declared in 2016 as an undue burden on women seeking abortion.

Pro-life demonstrators hold signs while marching past the U.S. Supreme Court during the 46th annual March for Life in Washington, DC last January (Picture: Getty)

Louisiana is not the only state where abortion rules are being tightened.

Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Florida are also proposing various amendments or bills that will roll back abortion rights.

The March for Life is demonstrating on a theme of ‘Life Empowers: Pro-Life Is Pro-Woman’ – an effort to link the march to the women’s suffrage movement ahead of 100th anniversary celebrations later this year for the 19th Amendment that gave American women the right to vote.

Anti-abortion leaders contend that prominent suffragist Susan B. Anthony strongly opposed abortion. Some scholars have challenged that view.