President Trump’s Posturing Problematic For Pro-Lifers
Written by on September 7, 2024
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Now that Labor Day has come and gone, campaigns for the 2024 U.S. presidential election have reached the home stretch. As Christians and other pro-life voters look ahead to Election Day on November 5, we face a dilemma: Neither major party candidate shares our convictions about the sanctity of life. On the one hand, Vice President Kamala Harris—the Democratic candidate for president—is a full-throated champion of abortion on demand. On the other hand, former President Donald Trump—the Republican candidate for president, and a onetime ally of pro-life Americans—has moved in a pro-choice direction.
During his tenure as president, President Trump took a series of executive actions to restrict abortion funding and promote the sanctity of life. In 2020, he became the first sitting president to attend the March for Life; while there, he asserted that “‘unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House.’” Significantly, President Trump appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States, laying the groundwork for the Court to overturn abortion-on-demand in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022). President Trump has taken credit for the Dobbs decision, calling it “‘the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation.’” Many pro-life Americans are deeply grateful to President Trump for his role in relegating the Roe v. Wade decision to the dustbin of history.
Over the past year, however, President Trump’s public remarks regarding abortion have shifted. In September 2023, President Trump referred to Florida’s ban on abortions after six weeks—a major pro-life victory—as a “‘terrible mistake.’” In April 2024, President Trump announced that he viewed abortion as a state issue and that he would not support federal legislation restricting abortion access. In July, the Republican Party approved a Trump-influenced platform that “[softened] longstanding Republican Party language in support of a federal ban on abortion.”
As the summer of 2024 progressed, the hits from President Trump kept coming. On August 19, 2024, President Trump stated that he would not use the Comstock Act to ban distribution of abortion pills by mail. The former president argued that abortion pills, which are regulated by the U.S. Department of Health & Services and cause the majority of abortions in the United States, are not a federal issue. On August 23, in a post on Truth Social, President Trump asserted that he will be “‘great for women and their reproductive rights’”; this language is typically used by abortion advocates to express support for abortion. On August 25, President Trump’s running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) stated that President Trump would veto a federal abortion ban if Congress passed one. On August 29, President Trump told reporters that his administration would “require the government or insurance companies to pay for in vitro fertilization treatments, commonly known as IVF.” (The typical practice of IVF involves the creation of multiple embryos, most of which are never implanted into a woman’s womb. While IVF is widely popular, and while married couples with fertility problems deserve compassion and support, the creation and destruction of these “extra” embryos makes IVF objectionable from a pro-life perspective.)
On August 30, after receiving a wave of feedback from pro-life leaders, President Trump offered pro-life voters a crumb of comfort when he confirmed—following hints to the contrary—that he will vote against a proposed state constitutional amendment that would overturn Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
Jason J. McGuire, executive director of New York Families Foundation, commented:
“To woo pro-choice voters, the former president has hewed to the political center on the deeply controversial issue of abortion. In so doing, however, President Trump risks alienating the pro-life voters who form much of his political base. More importantly, by backtracking from his past protection of unborn babies, President Trump has shown moral compromise on a conviction core to those who affirm life. Mr. Trump’s record as a pro-life president is indisputable—and while previous actions matter—so does current rhetoric. Pro-life voters want to know that they are not squandering their vote on Election Day, but moving the ball toward saving babies’ lives.”
For her part, Vice President Harris is not lukewarm about abortion. In fact, she is enthusiastic about it. The Vice President supports abortion till viability, accepts campaign contributions from Planned Parenthood, ordered a raid of the apartment of pro-life activist David Daleiden after Daleiden exposed Planned Parenthood’s grisly trafficking in fetal body parts, voted against Senate bills that would protect pain-capable unborn babies and born-alive abortion survivors, and is “proud to be the first president or vice president in history to visit a reproductive health clinic.”
Lila Rose of Live Action has expressed great disappointment with President Trump’s recent abortion rhetoric. In an interview with Politico, Rose said, “‘It is not the job of the pro-life movement to vote for President Trump… It’s our job, if we want to be an effective lobbying group in any way, to demand more and to say, “If you want my vote, I need to see more from you.” This is how politics works.’”
New York Families agrees with Lila Rose. Pro-life Americans should not be in the position of choosing between a stridently pro-choice presidential candidate and a moderately pro-choice presidential candidate. We need better options. Is President Trump up to the challenge? Between now and Election Day, will he come home to his pro-life base? Time will tell.
The post President Trump’s Posturing Problematic For Pro-Lifers appeared first on New York Families Foundation.
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