Editor's note. The following are the remarks of pro-life Cong. Chris Smith (R-NJ) to the March for Life.

You are an integral part of the greatest human rights struggle on the face of the earth – the right to life movement – a selfless expression of tangible love, compassion, and commitment to protecting women and children from the pain and violence of abortion and safeguarding all who are weak, frail, and unwanted.

Pro-life Champion Rep. Chris Smith

Be encouraged – our cause is right, our faith unshakable; our resolve indomitable. Continue to speak truth to power. Tell the President and lawmakers that abortion methods dismember, chemically poison, or starve to death precious children. Remind them that abortion is child abuse. Tell them of the incredibly brave post-abortive women, who speak out, and remind us that there are at least two victims in every abortion – mother and child.

On Tuesday, President Obama spoke eloquently of what he called "God given Promises" of freedom, equality and a chance at happiness.

Which begs the question, will our new President extend the "God given promise" of hope, freedom, justice, respect, compassion, and protection and a simple chance at happiness to America's unborn children?

Will the President's words be matched by deeds that rescue and save the most innocent among us?

Sadly, and you know this although most Americans don't, waiting in the wings, barely visible in the shadows, ready to pounce, lurks the most extreme pro-abortion agenda in American history.

If even a portion of the Obama agenda advances by executive order, reinterpretation of existing law, or enactment of new laws forcing taxpayers to fund abortion on demand, and provide huge increases in taxpayer dollars to groups like Planned Parenthood (an organization that itself performs almost 300,000 abortions each year) and passage of the so-called Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), millions of children will die and their mothers will be wounded.  And President Obama will be remembered forever not just as smart, savvy, gifted and eloquent--but as the Abortion President.

Despite this present darkness, be encouraged. Be strong. Be brave. For the scripture tells us, the Lord our God is with you. Continue to pray, fast, and to work hard. Joyfully embrace the noble challenge set before us to defend the most vulnerable. For in time we will prevail and overcome the injustice of America's culture of death, innocent lives depend on what we do today!

Let this be absolutely clear: Pro-Lifers will never quit, be discouraged, or grow weary! What God has given, what God has promised to us all – the right to life – no man, including President Obama, can take away. We have reason to be alarmed.

Recently, more than 50 pro-abortion organizations conveyed a 55-page blueprint to promote abortion to the Obama transition team. The document--marching orders--will result in death for millions of children in America and in foreign countries and will impose incalculable harm and pain on expectant mothers everywhere.

The Obama Administration and the pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that prepared it are--as of today--in lockstep. Indeed many personnel from pro-abortion NGOs have already been embedded in strategic places in the Administration where they can foment anti-child policies often undetected and with a degree of stealth.

What follows in the days and months ahead will be a highly choreographed message amplified by a pliant supportive news media to market the agenda.

The propagandists will try to sell the agenda by repeating ad nauseam that their goal is to reduce abortions.

Curiously, the very people who claim to want to reduce the number of abortions will seek to degrade, undermine, and if they get away with it, repeal outright, hundreds of federal and state pro-life laws that have demonstrated over time to have saved millions of innocent lives.

Both the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute and pro-life advocates agree that the federal prohibition on taxpayer funding for abortion significantly reduces the number of abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute 18-35% of Medicaid patients who would have had an abortion carry their babies to term when Medicaid funding is not available.

Similarly, a recent study showed that when laws requiring one parent consent before a minor girl obtains an abortion were enacted, the minor abortion rate was reduced by 19%, and by 31 % when parental consent from both parents was required.

On the chopping block:

• state and federal laws that prohibit taxpayer funding for abortions, including the Hyde Amendment in effect for over 30 years;

• nearly every modest life-affirming policy enacted over the past three decades (if FOCA is proposed and enacted);

• repeal of parental notification for minors;

• women's right to know statutes;

• conscience protections for healthcare providers;

• ethical safeguards for embryo-destroying stem cell research; and

• the repeal of even the recently enacted ban on partial birth abortion.

Change we can believe in? Hardly.

And they will seek to enrich and empower pro-abortion organizations everywhere with billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars and claim, with audacity, that their misuse of funds will reduce abortion.

Much well deserved respect has been directed to the man and the legacy of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this week. And for that reason, we need to hear the courageous voice of another Dr. King--his niece, Dr. Alveda King who has had two abortions and now speaks out for both victims of abortion--the unborn child and his or her mother.

As Dr. Alveda King has said, "defending human life is part of the civil rights struggle" as we remember the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us also remember the words of Dr. Alveda King who asks "How can the Dream survive if we murder the children?"