{"id":5354,"date":"2024-04-23T11:22:26","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T15:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/?p=5354"},"modified":"2025-02-12T13:39:45","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T17:39:45","slug":"trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/04\/23\/trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Sabotaging the Pro-Life Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Consistent Life Network is a nonpartisan organization that encourages individual writers to express a variety of views, and the views expressed in its blog are the writers’ own<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

by Rachel MacNair<\/p>\n

Because (among other backtracking among Republicans recently) Donald Trump recently announced his position on abortion as being that it should be left to the states \u2013 without encouraging the states to have laws protecting the victims \u2013 several conservative pro-life writers who have opposed Trump for a while have made some interesting points.<\/p>\n

Conservative Insights<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Russell Moore<\/p><\/div>\n

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I like the way the editor of Christianity Today<\/em>, Russell Moore, who identifies himself who as \u201cboth pro-life and anti-Trump\u201d put it in a CNN interview<\/a>. He commented on the people who are \u201cpro-life with three exceptions: rape, incest, and declining poll numbers.\u201d He pointed out this isn\u2019t \u201ca compelling moral vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em> had three columns on Trump’s announcement by writers who also contribute to The National Review<\/em>, the magazine founded by William F. Buckley. The newspapers want to diversify their opinion pieces with conservative views, and offering different perspectives has always been in the Buckley tradition.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ramesh Ponnuru<\/p><\/div>\n

Ramesh Ponnuru, The Washington Post<\/em>, April 10, 2024:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ponnuru is the editor of National Review<\/em>, and decades ago when he was a student at Princeton invited me to speak there as Feminists for Life of America president.\u00a0 He drew a parallel<\/a> with the 1858 Lincoln\u2013Douglas debates on slavery. Douglas argued slavery policy should be set state by state, to reflect the will of the people. That\u2019s what Trump is advocating now, and \u201cHe expresses no hope that states will protect unborn children, specifying only what exceptions he wants any law to have. That indifference to the pro-life cause is probably his most honest statement of his views in years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ross Douthat, The New York Times<\/em>, April 10, 2024:<\/strong><\/p>\n

They changed the title, but I prefer the original: How the Pro-Life Movement\u2019s Deal With Trump Made America More Pro-Choice<\/a>. I quote directly:<\/p>\n

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Ross Douthat<\/p><\/div>\n

The problem for pro-lifers is that these efforts at persuasion have become markedly less effective over a timeline that overlaps closely with Trump\u2019s takeover of the Republican Party. The captivity of abortion opponents, in this sense, isn\u2019t about the specific policy stances that Trump might choose and that they might then have to reluctantly accept. It\u2019s about the ways in which a Trumpist form of conservatism seems inherently to make Americans more pro-choice . . .<\/p>\n

[O]ne does not need to be a monocausalist to see how the identification of the anti-abortion cause with his particular persona, his personal history and public style, might have persuaded previously wavering and ambivalent Americans to see the pro-life movement differently than they did before.<\/p>\n

If you set out to champion the rights of the most vulnerable human beings while promising protection and support for women in their most vulnerable state, and your leader is a man famous for his playboy lifestyle who exudes brash sexism and contempt for weakness, people are going to have some legitimate questions about whether they can trust you to make good on your promises of love and care . . .<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the price of the bargain abortion opponents made. The deal worked on its own terms: Roe is gone. But now they\u2019re trapped in a world where their image is defined more by the dealmaker\u2019s values than by their own.<\/p>\n

David French, The New York Times<\/em>, April 11, 2024\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

French mentions that he agrees with Ponnuru\u2019s column (see above), and words things much more sharply in The Great Hypocrisy of the Pro-Life Movement<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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David French<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019d been a part of the pro-life movement my entire adult life. I began my activism in college and represented pro-life students and pro-life groups in my legal career, and I\u2019d never seen a desire for subjugation and control. While I don\u2019t pretend that any political movement is perfect, I\u2019ve seen with my own eyes pro-life activists and volunteers demonstrate immense love and compassion for women in distress, trying desperately to care for mother and child by offering financial, emotional and spiritual support.<\/p>\n

But now I\u2019m left wondering how much of the movement was truly real . . . Trump\u2019s advice<\/a>\u00a0to voters was to \u201cfollow your heart\u201d and \u201cdo what\u2019s right for your family, and do what\u2019s right for yourself.\u201d It\u2019s \u201call about the will of the people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This is the most pro-choice position a Republican presidential candidate has taken since at least Gerald Ford. And how did the pro-life establishment respond? With mild criticism, but also with immediate support . . .<\/p>\n

Even more ominously from a pro-life perspective, the\u00a0abortion rate rose under Trump<\/a> . . .<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to argue you\u2019re a movement rooted in love when you enthusiastically unite behind a fundamentally hateful man.<\/p>\n

French also gives personal experience, which I must say doesn\u2019t comport with my own personal experience. But he may get more attention and does get that attention identified as a conservative:<\/p>\n

At its worst, the pro-life movement was also deeply cynical. Many of its members have spent the last eight years mocking and bullying pro-life conservatives who\u2019ve refused to support Trump, even when we rightly said he was a terrible ambassador for a virtuous cause. I\u2019ve been called a baby-killer or murderer or heretic more times than I can count. Commitment to Trump was the ultimate test of your pro-life convictions. Yet now he is taking the most pro-choice position of any Republican presidential nominee in two generations, and all the largest pro-life groups continue to bend the knee.<\/p>\n

He concludes: \u201cThere is no truly pro-life party in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

My Thoughts<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Rachel MacNair<\/p><\/div>\n

As a consistent-lifer, I\u2019ve long held the conclusion that French just recently came to. Republicans have had policies on war and the death penalty that don\u2019t fit the bill. They\u2019ve been inadequate on poverty-reduction programs that have merit on their own but would also reduce abortions. Yet Republicans have never really been good enough on abortion just as a single issue either. So many of the office-holders haven\u2019t educated themselves enough about the issue to be able to articulate persuasively and effectively. They certainly have never given it the priority it deserves.<\/p>\n

This is one of the points I stress about the advantages of consistent-life candidates. There are very few of them, and what we do find is mainly for lower office and of course in our member group the American Solidarity Party<\/a>. But precisely because they aren\u2019t prominent, you can come much closer to counting on them. A consistent-life candidate is more likely to be sincere. They\u2019re also more likely to have thought it through carefully, because they\u2019ve had to articulate it to skeptics more than just employing platitudes.<\/p>\n

Even from a single-issue anti-abortion point of view, abortion is an issue where there are just too many politicians who take the position to get votes and don\u2019t even try to understand it well. So it\u2019s no wonder that when they found that it was no longer a stand with no policy implications except around the margins, but that practical policy could actually be advanced, they didn\u2019t have the skill set necessary to come up with creative or persuasive solutions.<\/p>\n

I report on these conservative writers because though they aren\u2019t advocates of the consistent life ethic and probably aren\u2019t that familiar with it (if they\u2019ve heard of it at all), they\u2019re having the kinds of insights that consistent-lifers commonly have. The same truth can be found from different perspectives, after all. Especially truth based on people whose thoughts are guided by compassion and principle.<\/p>\n

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Also of interest, former Vice President Mike Pence (who was unambiguously pro-Trump before 2021) weighed in with <\/em><\/p>\n

Donald Trump Has Betrayed the Pro-Life Movement<\/a> (The New York Times, April 20, 2024).<\/em><\/p>\n

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This quotation added on July 3, 2024:<\/em><\/p>\n

Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, July 1, 2024 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Referring to the debate between Biden and Trump on June 27, 2024, Lopez makes the negative case for her title question, The Most Pro-life President?\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Kathryn<\/a>

Kathryn Jean Lopez<\/p><\/div>\n

Trump was right to call out Democratic extremism on abortion. But the second question of the debate called out both candidates\u2019 ignorance on the issue. \u201cFirst of all, the Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill, and I agree with their decision to have done that, and I will not block it,\u201d Trump said. The Court did no such thing. It issued a decision on the abortion-pill case based not on the merits or safety of chemical abortion but on whether the plaintiff had standing for the case, which in no way indicated approval of chemical abortion. Trump\u2019s words in support of abortion pills were callous. Chemical abortion, increasingly the default method of abortion, is a bloody abandonment of pregnant girls and women.<\/p>\n

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And a couple more:<\/em><\/p>\n

Pro-Lifers Helped Bring Trump to Power. Why Has He Abandoned Us?<\/a> by Patrick T. Brown\u00a0(The New York Times, <\/em>July 19, 2024).<\/em><\/p>\n

Trump’s Abandonment of Pro-Lifers is Complete<\/a> by Philip Klein (The National Review<\/em>, August 23, 2024)<\/p>\n

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The Consistent Life Network is a nonpartisan organization that encourages individual writers to express a variety of views, and the views expressed in its blog are the writers’ own. by Rachel MacNair Because (among other backtracking among Republicans recently) Donald Trump recently announced his position on abortion as being that it should be left to… <\/p>\n