One wonders if there were actually pro-life advocates who fully believed Donald Trump was ever a convert to their cause.
A few days ago, National Review alumna Audrey Fahlberg had a piece in the Free Press talking about a possible pro-life revolt against Donald Trump. It is, of course, hard not to read these kinds of analyses of late and wonder if there were actually pro-life advocates who fully believed Donald Trump was ever a convert to their cause. His pitch for a second term was certainly clarifying for anyone who was hoping against hope: The Republicans took ending abortion in the United States out of their platform. Anyone who wasn’t born after he registered Republican knows that was one of the most consistently hard-fought aspects of every presidential convention. It was a litmus test for pro-life advocates.
Until it wasn’t.
Lila Rose from Live Action relays a comment Trump made to her in 2024 — “that he had never met a woman as uncompromisingly anti-abortion as her before.” Audrey quotes Lila as saying: “I found that very curious . . . because I know there’s other women around him, and certainly in the administration, who are just as pro-life as I am, and it makes me wonder if he’s either closing his ears to those voices and purposely trying to ignore them, or if he is pretending like they don’t exist.”
As maybe some pretended his very public life and activities didn’t exist when dubbing him the most pro-life president there ever has been?
Audrey quoted a frequent NRO contributor:
The problem for pro-life activists is that the mifepristone debate seems technical on the surface, but is deeply consequential given mifepristone’s increased accessibility, said John Gerardi, executive director for Right to Life of Central California.
“It sounds like a very nitpicky critique, but it’s not,” he told The Free Press. “It’s a major problem if this thing, which is the major driver of American abortion, isn’t being regulated well.”
As I wrote in my syndicated column last week, abortion pills are abortion in America, more than anyone really wants to let on. Except maybe Planned Parenthood, who is actively marketing abortion pills as “Just in Case” — a fire extinguisher to have in your purse or medicine cabinet should you need it. Some of us remember well when “emergency contraception” — which may or may not abort a child or prevent implantation — was talked about in the same exact terms. You can easily get those over Uber Eats now — available in most gas station convenience stores.
But they are not the same thing.
And this is undeniably true:
As pro-life leaders tell it, the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of Roe was the culmination of decades of grassroots organizing by Republican lawmakers, religious conservatives, and anti-abortion activists. But the ruling also revealed a political movement woefully unprepared to respond to the tidal wave of electoral backlash that followed, including successful ballot initiatives that expanded or enshrined the right to abortion even in red states like Kansas and Montana. As Democrats capitalized on anti-Dobbs messaging in special elections and that year’s midterms, many Republican candidates were caught flat-footed or abandoned the issue entirely.
And yet, I’ll also say, I am constantly encountering people who are the civilization of love the popes talk about. That’s not the language of pretty daydreaming. You open a new pregnancy center, you buy a building for a maternity home, you open your home to a child who was otherwise left orphaned.
The whole point of Christianity is God does not leave us alone.
Why would we leave a child alone?
Why would we eliminate a child because he might not be perfect? (And by now you are probably aware of the latest social media swarm around aborting children who might have Down syndrome). By that measure, none of us should be around.
Definitely not me.
How about you?