Mike Johnson Praises His Teenage Parents for Not Aborting Him

House Speaker Mike Johnson delivers remarks during the annual March for Life rally on the National Mall on January 19, 2024 in Washington, DC.

House Speaker Mike Johnson praised his parents for not aborting him when they were teenagers.

“I am myself the product of an unplanned pregnancy,” Johnson said in his address at the annual March for Life on Friday. “In January of 1972, exactly one year before Roe v. Wade, my parents, who were just teenagers at the time, chose life and I am very profoundly grateful that they did.”

Johnson, an anti-abortion advocate, has been outspoken about his parents’ teen pregnancy. He’s said that his parents had dated since the seventh grade and conceived him during their junior year of high school. The Louisiana Republican has claimed that a lot of his parents’ friends had tried to convince his mom to get an abortion, but that she ultimately decided to carry the pregnancy to term. Johnson is the oldest of four children in his family.

He is one of the most socially conservative members of Congress to be elected to the gavel in decades.

Opponents of abortion rights descended on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for the annual rally, which was themed “With Every Woman, For Every Child” this year.

The event took place as House Republicans are rallying behind two pregnancy-related bills that would increase protections and resources for college or university students who carry a pregnancy to term and require the Department of Health and Human Services to fund crisis pregnancy centers. Both bills passed the House Thursday. The White House has threatened to veto both measures.

The March for Life also comes months before the first presidential election since the fall of Roe v. Wade. The landmark Supreme Court decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion has upended the American political landscape over the last two years, helping Democrats fend off a widely predicted red wave in the 2022 midterms and score a number of state-level victories.

Several Republican-led states, including Ohio, Kentucky and Kansas, have also held referendums on abortion, but every ballot measure seeking to restrict abortion failed. Those results have proven that abortion has been a mobilizing force for Democrats, independents and even some moderate Republicans.

The success that Democrats have seen from campaigning on abortion has even led some Republicans warning that the GOP has to find a way to address the issue.

Former Trump White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany praised Vice President Kamala Harris’ appearance on The View on Wednesday, telling Republicans, “We, as a party, must do that because what Kamala is doing, right or wrong, is very powerful among young women.”

“She brought up abortion again and again and again. Even when she was given low-hanging fruit—she was asked about January 6th and 91 indictments against Trump—she pivoted right back to abortion, because she knows what is true,” McEnany said on Fox News’ Outnumbered. “The GOP has lost every single abortion ballot initiative post-Roe. Every single one.”

On Friday, Johnson encouraged anti-abortion advocates to “build a culture that encourages and assists more and more people to make that same decision” as his parents.

“This is a critical time to help all moms who are facing unplanned pregnancies, to work with foster children and to help families who are adopting, to volunteer and assist our vital pregnancy research centers and maternity homes,” the speaker said.

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