The Vatican Secretary of State is visiting Denmark as Papal Legate for the 1,200th anniversary of the beginning of Saint Ansgar’s mission. His programme also includes diplomatic meetings, among them visits with King Frederik X and Foreign Minister Rasmussen.

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Jan 23, 2026 / 18:54 pm (CNA).

Thousands of pro-lifers attended the  53rd annual March for Life on Friday in Washington, D.C. The 2026 event’s theme was “Life Is a Gift,” to invite “all people to rediscover the beauty, goodness, and joy of life itself,” the March For Life reported.

As attendees marched on the National Mall, they held signs, prayed, and sang their way toward the U.S. Capitol.

Scroll above to see some of the best signs that EWTN News spotted at the march.

Jan 23, 2026 / 18:34 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Thursday that it will stop funding research that uses fetal tissue of aborted babies.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, National Institutes of Health (NIH) director, said in a Jan. 22 statement that the agency has “reexamined its approach related to the use of human fetal tissue in federally funded research.”

“This decision is about advancing science by investing in breakthrough technologies more capable of modeling human health and disease,” Bhattacharya added. “Under President Trump’s leadership, taxpayer-funded research must reflect the best science of today and the values of the American people.”

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited ethical and scientific reasons for the change.

“HHS is ending the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions in agency-funded research and replacing it with gold-standard science,” Kennedy said in a Jan. 23 statement. “The science supports this shift, the ethics demand it, and we will apply this standard consistently across the department.”

The agency also will look to “potentially replace reliance on human embryonic stem cells,” according to Bhattacharya.

Embryonic stem cell lines are lab-grown cell lines used in research that come from aborted human fetal tissue.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a neuroscientist and senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, called the move “a very welcome development.”

“Biomedical research should not be built on the backs of directly-aborted human fetuses or embryos, and taking their bodily tissues for research necessarily involves a failure to obtain valid informed consent, a key ethical principle guiding all modern bioresearch,” Pacholczyk told EWTN News.

Pacholczyk welcomed the NIH “taking steps to rein in past abuses involving aborted fetal tissue and NIH funding.”

“Several previous U.S. administrations dropped the ethical ball when it came to allowing human fetal tissues from elective abortions to be used in NIH-funded scientific investigations,” he said. “In effect, they set up a situation where fetal-tissue research faced very few practical barriers or limitations.”

Funding control is “a critical mechanism to avoid unethical research practices,” Pacholczyk noted.

“The granting of funding, especially federal funding, is one of the highest forms of approbation and blessing a researcher can obtain in terms of his or her particular line of work,” he said. “Disbursement of funding needs to be directly linked to our vision of good, ethical science.”

“The rest of the world’s scientific community looks to the U.S., and to NIH-funded research in particular, as a kind of model and example when it comes to real excellence in science,” Pacholczyk continued. “Such excellence connotes much more than merely developing scientific breakthroughs while ignoring the means used to make those discoveries; it necessarily implies conscientious attention to ethics.”

Jan 23, 2026 / 18:14 pm (CNA).

A broad range of life issues from abortion to euthanasia and more were represented at the March for Life 2026 in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, expressed concern about a number of states across the country poised to legalize assisted suicide. “There are many states that the death lobby will be pushing for assisted suicide in 2026,” he said.

“In 2026 we are very concerned about Virginia, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Connecticut, and other states,” he said, adding: “2026 will require a unified effort to stop the expansion of killing by assisted suicide poisoning.”

Ashley Kollme, a mother of five children from Bethesda, Maryland, shared the story of her pregnancy with her youngest daughter, Sophia, who is 2 years old.

“Sophia was diagnosed with a complex congenital heart condition when I was 23 weeks pregnant,” Kollme said. “The first option that was presented to us was termination, and that was never an option that we would consider, and we chose life.” Sophia has had two open heart surgeries and lots of other procedures, her mother said, adding: “And she is the light of our lives.”

Kollme’s two sons, Otto and Max, stood by with signs featuring pictures of their little sister.

Gesturing to the posters, which featured a professional photo of Sophia, Kollme said the little girl is “one of the poster children for Johns Hopkins Hospital.”

Ultimately, Kollme said, “I think that we see a lot of ableism and abortion against people with disabilities, and I’ve become passionate about that because every child deserves a life.”

“Deserving life shouldn’t be conditional upon one’s health,” she said.

Mara Oswalt, a March for Life participant from Atlanta, held a sign saying “Unborn children die in ICE detention” and emphasized the need to recognize the dignity of all human life. “I’ve heard several instances of women having miscarriages because they are not eating well, they’re not being treated well in ICE detention,” Oswalt said.

Oswalt serves as creative director of Rehumanize International, an organization dedicated to fostering a culture of peace and life in accordance with the “consistent life ethic,” which calls for opposition to threats against human life including abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, unjust war, and torture.

“Those stories in particular really break my heart,” she said. “I know those women wanted their children. They wanted them to be cared for. And so I didn’t want them to be forgotten in this moment.”

In honor of faith, service, and community and in celebration of Catholic Schools Week, St. Anthony PTO invites you to give back to our Catholic school by participating in the PTO 2026 Online Donation Event. This event will run...

Jan 23, 2026 / 15:29 pm (CNA).

Vice President JD Vance and Republican lawmakers defended President Donald Trump’s abortion-related policies at the 2026 March for Life on Jan. 23.

“You have an ally in the White House,” Vance said in his speech.

Vance was the first political speaker at the march, and he was followed by House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, the longtime leader of the House pro-life caucus.

Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune addressed the marchers in prerecorded video messages.

In his speech, Vance said: “One of the things I most wanted in the United States of America is more families and more babies,” and touted the recent announcement that he and his wife, Usha, are expecting their fourth child.

“So let the record show that you have a vice president who practices what he preaches,” Vance said.

The vice president said Trump’s Supreme Court appointments were vital to overturning Roe v. Wade, which he called “the most important Supreme Court decision of my lifetime.”

He said the decision “put a definitive end to the tyranny of judicial rule on the question of human life” and allowed the people to settle these disputes democratically.

Vance spoke about some of the pro-life victories during the first year of Trump’s second term.

This included legislation that blocked Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements as well as reinstating and expanding the Mexico City Policy, which bans federal tax money from being used to support organizations that promote abortion abroad.

The vice president also spoke about the restoration of conscience protections for health care workers, the expansion of the child tax credit, and the pardoning of pro-life activists who were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

“Building a culture of life requires persuasion,” Vance said.

“That effort is going to take a lot of time, it’s going to take a lot of energy, and it’s going to take a little bit of money,” he said.

The vice president briefly addressed some criticism the administration has received from members of the pro-life movement who have been unhappy with certain developments.

Some pro-life advocates have expressed concern about the lack of action on the abortion pill mifepristone, which is under review by the Food and Drug Administration.

Others have raised objections to Trump urging lawmakers to be “flexible” on taxpayer-funded abortions in negotiations about extending Affordable Care Act tax credits.

Vance asked people to look at the successes.

“Look where the fight for life stood just one decade ago and look where it stands today,” he said.

In his video message, Trump celebrated many of the same pro-life policies as Vance and thanked marchers for their efforts to “stand up for the unborn.”

“We will continue to fight for the eternal truth that every child is a gift from God,” Trump said.

Johnson said a shift in policy from the Trump administration is that success is not just measured by the economy but also “the strength of the American family.”

He also spoke about the actions taken to ban Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements, saying: “We finally defunded big abortion and it was a long time coming.”

“Every single child deserves the opportunity to fulfill their God-given potential,” Johnson said.

Smith referenced the recent Marist Poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, which showed most Americans supporting at least some restrictions on abortion and approving of the work of pregnancy resource centers.

He also spoke strongly against the chemical abortion pill mifepristone, which he called “baby poison that kills the unborn child by starving the baby boy or baby girl to death” and said it poses health risks to women.

“We must today recommit to protecting the weakest and most vulnerable,” Smith said.

In a video message, Thune called abortion an “evil that’s too often brushed to the side.”

He said Republicans “will continue to do everything we can in Congress to support moms and protect preborn children.”

After the speeches from lawmakers, March for Life President Jennie Bradley Lichter urged participants to contact their senators amid ongoing negotiations related to health care.

Lichter encouraged them to ask their senators to oppose any health care legislation that excludes the Hyde Amendment, which bans taxpayer funding for abortion.