US President Donald Trump, seeking to shore up evangelical support ahead of the November election, addressed the country's biggest annual anti-abortion rally on Friday as the Senate sat in judgment
"Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House," Mr Trump told tens of thousands of anti-abortion campaigners at the 47th "March for Life" on the National Mall.
Mr Trump, the first president to address the annual event in person, assailed Democrats for supporting abortion rights and
Thousands of anti-abortion advocates listened to the president speak at the annual March for Life rally. Source: ABACA
"When it comes to abortion," the 73-year-old Republican president said.
"Democrats have embraced the most radical and extreme positions.
"We have taken decisive action to protect religious liberty.”
Following Mr Trump's brief remarks, the crowd broke into a chant of "four more years," a reference to the November vote, when Christian evangelical support will be crucial to Mr Trump's re-election.
"I vote pro-life," said signs held by members of the crowd.
Mr Trump made only a single reference to the impeachment trial going on just down the street that could see him removed from office for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
House impeachment manager Adam Schiff speaks during the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump in the Senate. Source: Senate Television
"They are coming after me because I am fighting for you and we are fighting for those who have no voice," he told the crowd. "And we will win because we know how to win."
Beverly Atkins, 55, drove 13 hours from Alabama to attend the rally.
"Life begins at conception," she told AFP.
"We don't think you should destroy that."
As for impeachment, she said Democrats "have no evidence" that Mr Trump did anything wrong.
The seven Democratic impeachment "managers" are to make their final arguments at Mr Trump's Senate trial on Friday.
White House lawyers will then have 24 hours, starting at 10am, to present their defence of the president, who was impeached by the House of Representatives on 18 December.
'I love Trump'
Impeachment may forever stain his record, but Mr Trump is virtually assured of acquittal by the Republican-held Senate - and he is already looking past the trial to the re-election fight that awaits.
Before entering politics Mr Trump defended abortion rights, but he has increasingly aligned himself with the anti-abortion movement as he works to firm up his electoral base.
"I love Trump," said Jim Bolognio, 63, who came to the rally from New Jersey.
Activists attending the March for Life anti-abortion rally visit the Capitol in Washington. Source: AP
"These people are going to re-elect him."
"My daughter is adopted," Mr Bolognio added.
"She wouldn't be here if her mother didn't choose the right path."
Brayden Harris, 16, who came to Washington from Hershey, Pennsylvania, with the "pro-life" club of his school, said "abortion is wrong”.
"God says he knows you before you're even born, so in the womb, he knows you," Mr Harris said.
"It's what it says in the Bible.
The "March for Life," which Mr Trump had addressed by video the last two years, is held annually on or near the anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling in the Roe v Wade case which legalized the procedure nationwide on 22 January 1973.
The March for Life began in 1974 after the US Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. Source: EPA
Under Mr Trump's presidency, abortion rights activists fear that landmark ruling is now under threat.
"Since day one, this administration has carried out a full-out assault on our health and our rights," said Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which supports abortion rights.
Since taking office in 2017, Mr Trump has strengthened the Supreme Court's 5-4 conservative majority, naming two justices who oppose abortion - Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh - and galvanizing abortion opponents.
Conservative-leaning Chief Justice John Roberts is seen as the potential swing vote if the constitutionality of abortion eventually comes before the court.
President Trump greets participants on stage at the 47th annual March for Life. Source: ABACA
Around two-thirds of Americans say abortion should be legal, polls suggest.
But while Roe v Wade remains the law of the land, numerous states have taken measures to limit access to the procedure.
The first big Supreme Court test of that anti-abortion push will come in March when the court examines a Louisiana law whose restrictions on abortion are similar to a Texas law struck down nearly four years ago.
Faith leaders pray with President Trump during an evangelical rally. Mr Trump has become the first sitting president to attend the March for Life rally. Source: AP
Like each year, the march wound its way from the National Mall towards the Supreme Court near the Capitol, where senators are sitting as jurors in Mr Trump's impeachment trial.
Republicans hold a 53 to 47 edge in the Senate and a two-thirds majority of the 100 senators would be needed to convict and remove the president from office.
