Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Susan B. Anthony List & Life Institute Luncheon Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2018, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Vice President Mike Pence continues to be a staunch pro-life advocate.

During his tenure as governor of Indiana, Pence made a name for himself as an unashamed, vocal proponent of the unborn. When he joined Donald Trump’s ticket as a running mate, I was quite skeptical of how his pro-life positions would square with the previously pro-choice/pro-abort Trump.

As I wrote in January, President Donald Trump has surprised me when it comes to advancing the cause of life in the United States. I had many doubts as to whether a former, abortion-supporting Democrat would be serious and proactive. While there is still much work to be done, I am happy to have been wrong as far as this is concerned.

Under the Trump administration, the following has occurred:

• Reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy
• Appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court
• Defunding of UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund)
• The killing of Obama era regulation relating to Title X Funding
• Department of Health and Human Services declared that life begins at conception

Of course, Planned Parenthood still receives half-a-billion in federal funding. Though Congress is under Republican control, it is doubtful that we will even see a serious attempt at defunding. The House would most likely have no problem passing such a measure. To pass in the Senate, however, 60 votes are needed. As it stands right now, this is impossible given the party breakdown and because we have pro-choice/pro-abort cowards like Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins on this side of the aisle.

In a speech this week before a major pro-life advocacy group, Pence praised this administration’s work thus far…

Pence said those measures showed “more progress in the last year in the cause of life than I have seen in public policy in all of my years” and claimed that “life is winning in America.”

…and relayed his hopes for the future.

But the vice president’s ultimate goal, as he publicly stated during the presidential campaign, is to overturn the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which said in 1973 that criminalizing abortion is a violation of a woman’s constitutional right to privacy.

“I truly do believe, if all of us do all that we can, that we will once again, in our time, restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law. But we have to do the work,” Pence told the audience in Tennessee.

He then encouraged the audience to keep up the opposition to abortion rights. “I mean, for all the progress since 1973, the resilience of this movement proceeding out of the heart of a compassionate nation, I just know in my heart of hearts that this will be the generation that restores life in America,” he said.

It’s plain to see that American society devalues life. We see it in cruelty to others as they are deemed worthless. We see it in mass shootings in our schools, churches, and places of entertainment. We see it in the number of unborn dead since Roe v. Wade was decided. As it stands right now, that number is near 60,000,000.

Whether or not such a decision is overturned remains to be seen. It would certainly take a special set of circumstances and shift on the actual court to even consider the possibility. We can’t change the fact that abortion is legal. However, we can support life-affirming policies.

As the facts clearly show, the Trump administration has done well to advance the protection of the unborn. Pence is right to be hopeful.

Follow Kimberly Ross on Twitter: @southernkeeks.