Head of anti-abortion group promises to spend $41M during 2020 election cycle

The president of the nation’s largest anti-abortion advocacy group said Monday night it would spend $41 million in the 2020 cycle to reelect President Trump and “pro-life” members of Congress while advocating for more abortion restrictions at the state level.

The goal, said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, is to eventually overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s right to abortion.

{mosads}“We’ll work closely with our local allies on the most ambitious pro-life legislative agenda in history to aggressively challenge, erode and finally overturn Roe v. Wade,” Dannenfelser said at the organization’s annual fundraising dinner Monday night in Washington.

“On top of this, we’ll be protecting our pro-life Senate majority, increasing our ranks in the House, and reelecting Donald Trump.”

The Susan B. Anthony List is one of the most powerful anti-abortion groups in the country, supporting the campaigns of lawmakers opposed to abortion at the federal and state levels.

Dannenfelser herself is a close ally of the Trump administration and served as the chair of the Trump campaign’s 2016 anti-abortion coalition, helping build support for him among voters who oppose abortion. 

Going into 2020, Republicans and the Susan B. Anthony List will paint Democrats as extreme on abortion, pointing to recently passed bills in states like Illinois and New York that would ease restrictions on the procedure, Dannenfelser said.

“Going into 2020, abortion extremists are giving us an unlikely gift, are they not?” she said.

“They know that the Roe regime is unwinding and coming to an end. They are overreaching.”

While Democrats have called Republicans extreme for passing abortion bans in states like Alabama and Georgia, Dannenfelser defended the laws as a sign of an “awakening” in the anti-abortion movement.

“State lawmakers acting on their constituents’ will have been emboldened to advance pro-life legislation like never before,” she said, noting that they are some of the “strongest bills ever.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley was the keynote speaker at the fundraiser, opening up about the difficulties she and her husband faced while trying to get pregnant.

“We struggled for many years riding a roller coaster of false hopes and painful disappointment,” said Haley, who has two children with her husband, Michael Haley.

“These experiences, the good and the bad, solidified for me what I had known long ago intellectually — that each and every life is a gift from God.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was awarded the organization’s “Distinguished Leader Award,” largely for his role in confirming a record number of judicial nominees under Trump.

McConnell, in brief remarks, vowed there will be “no vacancies left behind” in this Congress.

“These victories are already paying early dividends,” McConnell said.

“They’ll keep paying dividends for decades to come — really for a generation or more.”