“Over the past few years, pregnant bellies have poked out beneath crop tops, protruded from artful cutouts and burst forth from skimpy bikinis — deliberately,” a feature in the New York Times extols. “They’re onstage at concerts, in celebrity pregnancy-announcement posts on Instagram, at the park, on the beach and in the street.”

“Sun’s Out, Bumps Out: It’s not just Rihanna. Pregnant women are baring their bellies and opting out of traditional maternity wear.”

This style piece is a far cry from June 24’s on the pregnant-belly-accentuating styles coming out of the Trump administration. Rereading “The Politics and Power of the Pregnancy Image,” I realize I forgot how ridiculous it was.

For instance:

If the bare-chested, muscled mixed martial arts fighters of the U.F.C. match that President Trump hosted on Flag Day were the poster guys for MAGA’s image of masculinity, then the pregnant women of Trump world are one half of their feminine counterparts. Along with the sheath-clad, lip-filled, pageant-haired Mar-a-Lago set, they offer an image of idealized womanhood that gives literal shape to the pronatalist movement.
“It almost feels like a memo went out,” said Jill Filipovic, the host of the “Week in Women” podcast. “They have quite intentionally opted to present themselves as, ‘I am really pregnant, and this is what women were chosen to do,’ and they are happy to say that both with their looks and their mouths.”

Pregnant women show — it tends to happen when another human being is growing inside you. Women who can wear the latest maternity styles may just do it because they look good in it; it’s comfortable, efficient, among other reasons. Everything does not have to be about politics.

And, oh, by the way, men and women are different. We can’t take knowing that for granted among higher-education administrators and others. This week, Sam Hawgood, the chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, told a House committee that a “vast majority of pregnancies are in women.” Besides being chancellor of “one of ten premier public research universities in the University of California (UC) system and its only campus exclusively focused on health sciences and graduate-level education,” Hawgood is also a pediatrician.

The Rihanna piece explains pregnancy silhouettes as a generational thing, having to do with “body positivity.” And, by the way, the Rihanna reference dates back to 2022 when the singer

announced her first pregnancy wearing a half-buttoned bright pink Chanel puffer jacket, her bare bump in full view. As the singer came to define a more revealing, fashion-forward mode of maternity dressing, many other celebrities have followed suit.

But if you are part of the Trump administration, well, JD Vance brainwashed you and wants you to retrain America’s women to have many babies.

On top of being silly, the political-memo talk is insensitive, of course, to women on the right who are suffering infertility.

Let the pregnant ladies — especially those who have to be on camera all the time, and in the brutality of summer — be. Motherhood is beautiful. Whether she is Usha Vance or Anne Hathaway.

Speaking of Hathaway, as she continues her Odyssey appearances, she continues to rejoice over this coming baby. And I continue to see people on the right complain that pro-life women like Lila Rose and myself should not be saying anything nice about her, because she only recognizes this baby because she wants the baby. We know she has previously referred to her experience with abortion as a “mercy.”

Let her be. Pray for her and her family. May mercy truly be hers. And may the embrace of this pregnancy be healing, liberating, and, yes, even instructional. We pro-lifers simply must be in the business of conversion — changing hearts and minds. Faith and reason will help accomplish this. So will love. Love even the ladies on The View you disagree with.

Heather Hunter from Salem Radio makes this excellent point:

The good news about all the media obsession with left-leaning celebrities’ baby bumps—especially those over 40—is that it’s all pro-life messaging, whether they realize it or not. It reinforces the idea that babies are a good thing. Keep it coming, media. I’ll take pro-life messaging all day.

Rolling Stone Finds Abortion Pills Worth Defending

“THE ABORTION PILL HAS NEVER ABUSED WOMEN. MEN DO”

So goes a headline in that bastion of women’s rights, Rolling Stone magazine. Perhaps you’ve read, or seen, mothers give testimony about their babies dying because a man got abortion pills and coerced them into abortions. Pay no attention. And whatever you do, don’t believe for a moment pro-lifers care about women, the piece in Rolling Stone argues:

It is an old trick. When men abuse or attack women, society responds by restricting women. Don’t wear that skirt. Don’t walk home alone. Don’t leave your drink unattended.
Now it’s: Don’t allow abortion pills to be mailed because a man might use them to commit a crime, as if abusive men are uncontrollable forces of nature. Since we apparently cannot expect men to refrain from drugging their partners, women must surrender access to medication.

By the way, for any of you Second Amendment stalwarts, don’t even think about talking to Rolling Stone about guns. Because pro-lifers should oppose guns, because men use guns against pregnant women.

Hey, Rolling Stone moralists: Perhaps we could find common ground on opposing intentional murder.

For the record: I think people should be concerned/horrified that men are getting abortion pills over the mail and coercing women into taking them. Abortion was wrong before that could be done legally in the United States. Abortion will be wrong if there is an after that is legal. It’s not a sudden reality that the pro-life movement cares about women who are abused. We oppose the thing that most immiserates women — convincing her to end the life of her child and pretend it’s just a routine medical procedure.

Some Women Count, Some Women Don’t

As for the view from The View this week: Sunny Hostin is upset Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline, was appointed to his Senate seat after his sudden death last weekend. Hostin both inexplicably called Graham a “DEI hire” and exclaimed: “It’s just fundamentally wrong that South Carolina just couldn’t elect a woman and this is the only way that it was done.” Hostin has never heard of Nikki Haley? Former member of the House of Representatives (2005–2011), governor of the State (2011–2017), and ambassador to the United Nations (2017–2018; which does require a Senate confirmation vote). Perhaps Haley would be dismissed as DEI, too — conservative woman, Indian-American, a Christian, though raised Sikh. I think the conservative woman thing is her problem. We do exist.

Just one more point about hostility toward right-leaning women: Sheldon Whitehouse went after the woman whose testimony could have put us out of our Graham Platner pain weeks ago. Lyndsey Fifield got used and abused by the New York Times when she trusted them with her story of an abusive relationship with the now-former Senate candidate. She has absolutely nothing to gain by them accurately telling her well-documented story — and a whole lot of pain to relive when they presented her as if she was an unreliable woman with a political agenda. Platner’s campaign has ended, and the Democrats need to leave Fifield and her family alone. They once said “believe all women,” but what they mean is clearly the ones who are politically convenient.

Fifield is a wife, mother, and upstanding soul. I know her personally as a woman with a heart for struggling mothers and other women. She deserves an apology. Give her the decency of returning to her life as a private citizen. Women do try to look out for other women. Platner will not be elected to a position of power, and so her job here is done. Surely a sitting U.S. senator can find a better way to use his time than go on CNN and attack a woman who has been through hell thanks to his party and its surrogates (the New York Times).

Suing over Their Son’s Life

Since writing about the Canadian men suing the woman who acted as their surrogate for refusing to abort their now two-year-old son, I’ve noticed the story getting traction. It seems to have some resonance — it’s naturally not sitting well that these fathers have taken the single mother to court over a cleft lip on the child. There’s an avalanche of dark messages the move conveys.

I keep thinking of the late Father Joseph Koterski (I wrote a remembrance of him for America here). He died five years ago this coming August 9. In the Catholic Church, five years is about the time we start getting serious about proving he was a saint. Those of us who were blessed to know him were fairly certain — and it would explain why God clearly granted him the ability to defy all laws of time and physics; we were quite sure he had to bilocate to be able to get done all of his service ministries as a Jesuit priest, pro-life leader, wise academic, and all-around great, humble servant of God.

He had a cleft palate. (Also this precious one!) Working to build a culture of life and civilization of love was right and just. It was also his duty of gratitude that he was allowed to be born.

Around National Review

Michael Fragoso: Blanche, Trump, and Mifepristone

Wesley J. Smith: France Legalizes Euthanasia

Marjorie Dannenfelser: Lindsey Graham Was a Fierce Defender of the Pro-Life Cause

Me:

No, Justice Amy Coney Barrett Most Definitely Should Not Resign from the U.S. Supreme Court

The One Where the Kardashians Save the World

John Gerardi at Right to Life Radio talks with me about Planned Parenthood and pro-life “raging.”

Other Things

Maddy Kearns: Why the Left Hates the Medicine That Made Me a Mom

Charles Camosy: Surrogacy Is the Worst Outcome of a Throwaway Society

Clare Ath: A Catholic grandmother was fired for telling the truth. America should pay attention

Alliance Defending Freedom: Pro-life groups ask DC Circuit to uphold their free speech right to chalk message on city sidewalk

Upcoming

July 22, 1 p.m., Stopping Black Market Abortion Drugs: A Webinar from the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Register here.

July 25, 10:00 a.m.–11:00 a.m. (PT), Hope for Brighter Tomorrows Online Prayer and Support Call with Kay Warren – for parents of children with mental illness. Register here.

October 25: Council for Life, Celebrating Life Luncheon, 25th Anniversary, Dallas

Tim Tebow is the keynote. More here.

November 5–7, Sister Death-Gate of Life Conference, Franciscan University of Steubenville — St. Francis and Contemporary Questions in Death, Dying, and Human Dignity. Info here.

Love for Life

A parting thought from Boston College philosophy professor Peter Kreeft. Interviewer Matt Fradd asked him his advice to the soon-to-be married. Kreeft, who recently lost his wife, replied:

The last view I had of my wife about an hour after she died . . . I fell in love with her again. Here is a wasted, emaciated, wrinkled, suffering body. It’s as beautiful as a crucifix. Because that body ain’t gonna last, but the soul is. So, if you don’t love her soul but just love her body, then don’t get married.