US Vice President Mike Pence: Women's abortion rights will end 'in our time'

US Vice President Mike Pence has predicted that abortion could end in America "in our time," telling a group of anti-abortion activists they were making historic progress toward their goal of abolishing the procedure.

Speaking Tuesday at a luncheon organized by anti-abortion groups in Nashville, Tennessee, Pence called US President Donald Trump the “most pro-life president in American history.”

“I know in my heart of hearts this will be the generation that restores life in America," Pence said.

"Allow me to bring greetings to you from the most pro-life president in all of history, President Donald Trump," he said. "To all of you who are gathered here, to religious broadcasters who have made a difference for the cause of life, we thank you."

"If all of us do all we can, we can once again, in our time, restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law."

Pence has seemingly been a vocal supporter of pro-life, anti-abortion policies throughout his political career. 

The thousands attending the evangelical association's annual convention greeted Pence with standing applause.

"I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order," Pence said, repeating one of his oft-used phrases in his speech.

Abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America reacted to the speech saying it is indicative of the administration’s efforts to "'normalize' the idea of a world in which women don’t get to decide their own destinies or control their own bodies."

"This is the future that Mike Pence envisioned today, and it’s a future that the majority of Americans reject," the organization's communications director Kaylie Hanson Long said in a press statement. "We look forward to when Mike Pence’s tenure in the White House ends, which will most certainly be ‘in our time.’”

Abortion in the United States has been, and remains, a controversial issue. Various anti-abortion laws have been in force in each state for over a century.

In the United States, the main actors in the abortion debate are most often labeled either as "pro-choice" or "pro-life", though most Americans are considered somewhere in the middle.

In 1973, the US Supreme Court effectively legalized abortion nationwide. In the 45 years since the decision was issued, the March for Life has been staged near the ruling’s anniversary in protest.

Last month, Trump criticized US abortion laws as among the most permissive in the world. In a speech to anti-abortion activists at the annual March for Life on Friday, he pledged his administration would always defend “the right to life.”

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