The commitments President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Pence made at Family Research Council’s 2016 Values Voters Summit are still making waves. [Wednesday], Gov. Pence was asked about his VVS promise to be the champion on pro-life priorities and to defund Planned Parenthood. Pence said, “The president will be their champion. The president has taken a strong stand on the sanctity of life,” and that he shares that conviction. Pence went on to discuss the role he will play in advancing the new administration’s pro-life agenda forward by working with Congress and the American people.

Mike Pence has an important job ahead of him in working with Congress to advance the priorities President-elect Trump outlined in a letter to pro-life leaders in September of last year:

• Nominating pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court;

• Signing into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would end painful late-term abortions nationwide;

• 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; and

• Making the Hyde Amendment permanent law to protect taxpayers from having to pay for abortions.

Donald Trump is moving ahead on two of these important goals. He has reportedly narrowed his list of possible nominees for the Supreme Court of the United States, having recently had interviews with a few of the possible candidates.

In addition, the Budget Resolution passed in both the Senate and House of Representatives will pave the way for repealing Obamacare and redirecting taxpayer money away from Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics. Once President Trump signs the Budget Resolution, a reconciliation bill will be ushered through the House and Senate and that bill, which will require only 51 senators’ votes, bypassing a procedural vote with a 60-vote threshold, will include the Obamacare and Planned Parenthood provisions. This will be a major pro-life gain by ending the forced partnership between taxpayers and organizations like Planned Parenthood, which spent almost $1 million on lobbying for abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion in 2016.

Not only has the incoming administration clearly made headway in advancing pro-life policy through legislation, but it is also expected in the first 100 days of the administration to issue executive orders and to take administrative action to protect life. One such executive order is expected to include what has previously been called the Mexico City Policy, first issued by President Reagan to protect taxpayer funds from financing organizations that promote or provide abortions. Certainly, the initiatives of Trump-Pence team will save many, many unborn lives.

But they won’t be without opposition. Wednesday night, LGBT activists put their disdain for the new administration and the policies that propelled them to victory on full display. The Washington Post reported that the so-called Queer Dance Party “shimmied and sashayed their way through the Chevy Chase neighborhood Wednesday night toward the house temporarily rented by Vice President-elect Mike Pence to protest what they consider his anti-gay views.” The Women’s March on Washington that is scheduled for the day after the inauguration is likewise showing its true colors as an instrument of the Left. On Monday it booted a women’s group from the march simply because it was pro-life. Such fierce opposition is why those of us for whom faith, family and freedom are first-order issues need to continually make our voice heard as a counterbalance of truth in the new administration.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.