Mike Pence has predicted the end of legal abortion in the US 'in our lifetime'.

The Vice President, a long-time campaigner against abortion, told a lunch hosted by the anti-abortion organisation, Susan B Anthony List & Life Institute, he had seen more progress in the Trump administration's first year in office than in his entire life.

'I know in my heart of hearts this will be the generation that restores life in America,' he told the audience in Nashville on Tuesday according to The Hill website.

'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.'

Over Trump's first year in office he won plaudits from conservative Christian supporters for reversing a ban on states from defunding Planned Parenthood and reinstating a block on overseas health agencies receiving US government funds if they cover or promote abortion.

However campaign pledges to defund Planned Parenthood and ban abortions beyond 20 weeks of pregnancy have proved more difficult in the Senate.

'Let me admonish you as we go forward in this cause in 2018 to understand while we have made great progress, we have much work left to do,' said Pence.

He noted that while a ban on 20-week abortions passed the House last year, it failed in the Senate in January, where Republicans have a slim majority. All Democrats apart from three blocked the bill and two Republican senators also voted against it.

Future success depends 'not so much on those of us who have the privilege of serving in public life as it does on all of you,' Pence said.