National Celebrate Life Day Reminds Pro-Lifers There Is Still Work To Do

Celebrate Life Day 2026, Washington, D.C.

A small crowd gathered beside the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol building in Washington D.C. on June 20. Most were high school and college students, many wearing gray t-shirts that read “Celebrate Life.” As the sun began to set, turning the white buildings surrounding the National Mall gold, several pro-life speakers stood on the small stage to discuss the ongoing battle to end abortion.

Students for Life of America has hosted National Celebrate Life Day annually since 2023 to commemorate the overturning of Roe v. Wade. While most of the speakers this year cheered for the victory in the Supreme Court, they also highlighted the importance of continuing to fight against mail-order abortion.

In honor of America’s 250th, Students for Life set out 250 luminaries with different colored lights inside – 197 with white lights to commemorate America’s 197 years before Roe v. Wade, 49 with red lights for the years under Roe v. Wade, and four with blue lights for America’s new path forward.

Attendees heard from speakers like Kristan Hawkins, Lydia Taylor Davis, and Dr. William Lile, known as Pro-Life Doc. For Hawkins and Taylor, the event was a good opportunity to remind listeners of the significance of victories already won. For Lile, it was an important time to consider the continued problem the abortion pill poses.

Lile reasoned that if doctors can operate on babies developing in the first and second trimesters, then those babies must be patients, even if they have yet to be born. “A patient’s a patient no matter how small,” Lile said. Yet we are killing those patients in the womb using a pill that is heralded as “healthcare.”

“Last year, over 740,000 babies were killed with the abortion pill,” Lile said. “That is more population than every man, woman, and child that lives here in Washington, D.C. That is evil.”

Several other speakers echoed Lile’s sentiment – the overturning of Roe v. Wade was a victory, but certainly not the end of the fight. Abortion still happens, in some places with greater frequency than it did before.

Taylor-Davis, who primarily targets college students in her messaging, said she is hopeful for the complete abolition of abortion. “The good news is that I truly believe Gen-Z already cares deeply about justice, human rights, and protecting the vulnerable," she said. "Our job is to connect those values to the pro-life movement and show them that defending pre-born children is one of the greatest human rights causes of our time.”

Hawkins expanded Taylor-Davis’s statement. “Let me tell you who changes the culture,” she said. “It is not the courts. It is not only the laws that are written here in the capital behind me. Culture is changed by the people. Ordinary, courageous, persuaded people who decide to live and speak the truth out loud, one heart at a time.”