The topic about which I am most often asked to speak is the future of the Pro-Life movement. In that talk, I make the case that we are like people in a sinking boat who are so busy bailing water that we do not fix the leak. In the case of helping women and babies through all of our current efforts, we are failing to address the reasons why women seek abortion in the first place.
Those who have read my book are also well informed on how policies on abortion over which the incumbent president has control flip back and forth with every new administration. We in the Pro-life movement are failing to notice that we must elect the president, vice-president, and members of Congress in order to have legislation passed to codify pro-life positions so they cannot be changed by the next pro-abortion president.
Therefore, I wish to interject into the current debate in which some declare that the Republicans have “abandoned” the Pro-Life movement. We should listen to ourselves. Our elected officials who have supported the Pro-Life movement with us are the same people. Their policies and voting records of the past stand to testify, and we can visit them and discuss the issues if we are uncertain. By all means, we should do so regularly and set goals together.
However, let us not pursue the status quo of flipping back and forth with changes in the presidency and digging in to only support our pregnancy help centers and legislate protection of life on a State level. We must fix the reasons women feel that abortion is their only practical choice.
Our adversaries on the issue constantly declare to women voters that Republicans want to take away their choices in life; they want to force women to have babies so all of their opportunities in life will go away; they care only for the baby and nothing for the mother. Those who have read my book have also noticed which populations are targeted for abortion, heralding back to Eugenics and Malthusian propositions.
I post these remarks so we will consider the derisive remarks being made because the new Republican political platform does not contain the strongest pro-life rhetoric, in fact seemingly softening the position of Republicans on the issues. Rather than speculate, let us ask our representatives…have they changed their minds on the issues that are important for us ? Let us also understand that these issues have been made purposefully divisive by our adversaries in order to keep Republicans from being elected. We must not take the bait.
Expressing concern is certainly appropriate, and asking those questions of the people we helped place in office is certainly a duty, but drawing conclusions and raising an alarm with intent to turn voters against the people who got us to this point and who could shape the future, is counterproductive, to say the least. Which of us has ever gotten everything we wanted when we first asked for it? It took 50 years to overturn Roe, and it was not the Democrats who strived to do so, and it was not a Democrat president who appointed judges to the Supreme Court who are devoted to what is actually meant by the words in the constitution and its amendments by which we have agreed to live.
A Democrat president and Democrats in Congress will do everything possible to undo all of our progress in respect for the life and dignity of all people in all stages of life and in all circumstances. Let us be careful not to give ammunition to our adversaries. And let us not be so short-sighted as to be satisfied with fighting the battles in our States and doing diaper drives for our local pregnancy centers.
We must change our society so that pregnant women are respected and motherhood is revered, and we must ensure that all of the life choices of pregnant women are preserved. This will not be easy, but we passed Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Civil Rights Laws… we can change society to respect women and motherhood and protect all of their opportunities in life, and we can declare the personhood of the baby still in the womb. But, we cannot expect Democrats who embrace abortion and get re-elected using huge sums of abortion-tainted money to give us this legislation.
Whereas I do believe we should unite behind organizations that continue to advocate the sanctity of life and the personhood of the baby in the womb, let us also acknowledge that the Republican platform is not a “disaster.” The positions were adopted to come more into alignment with what people think around the country, to mitigate the divisiveness fostered by the current administration, and persuade voters to choose Republicans to lead the country.
By making the Republican Party more inclusive of people with various opinions, we unite people behind things that must be done to rebuild our economy, infrastructure, and military, thereby to prevent escalation of foreign wars into global conflict. Only then can we tackle the end-game of personhood for the baby in the womb, preservation of life choices for pregnant women, and reverence for those who chose motherhood.
Before we can more forward…and do so in the next generation… the Republicans must get elected president and vice-president and also down the ballot. The Supreme Court has ruled that the 10th amendment to the Constitution gives the individual States the right to debate issues not decided in the Constitution or by federal statute. The Democrats want to codify the essence of Roe so it would not be just a SCOTUS ruling that could be overturned by a future Court, but would the law of the land. The Republicans under Trump’s leadership want to keep the debate in the States.
If Trump is elected, one can expect new leadership at the FDA so that their own regulations must be obeyed. There is reason to hope that there will be a ruling that the abortion pills are unsafe to be used without supervision of a doctor and should be prescribed by a health care provider only after it has been verified that the pregnancy is in the womb. We would like for the abortion pills to go away, but that is not going to happen; women get them easily and are harmed, sometime killed, because of current FDA rulings.
I believe it is necessary not to make the Republican platform largely controversial and divisive, and one should not reasonably believe that our pro-life Republican elected officials have gone off the rails and changed their minds on the sanctity of life. In fact, one saw at the Republican National Convention that there are strong exhibitions of faith and support for the life and dignity of all persons.
We must be in this for the long term, changing the hearts and minds of the people. In a talk I give on the subject, I define the problems we face in the future of the Pro-Life movement. It must not be more of the same. Fighting over every little detail, while sometimes necessary to maintain the conversation, is a tedious endeavor that obscures the end game. We must develop the vision of a society in which the life and dignity of every person is valued with pregnant women and motherhood revered. Every pregnant woman must retain all of the opportunities in life that non-pregnant women have.
I hope the reader heard that part of comments made at the RNC when it was observed during the Trump administration that a meeting of senior advisers to Trump consisted of 5 mothers with a total of 19 children. Let us not take one vote away from Trump by arguing that the Republican platform did not completely satisfy our own agenda. We must be patient while being persistent. In the long run, we must have social reform on the scale of the civil rights movement respecting pregnant women and mothers and removing the obstacles that drive many women to thinking they have no real choice but to have an abortion. Democrats will not give that to us.
As soon as Trump is (hopefully) elected, and I know that there is a sympathetic ear in the White House, I will begin this advocacy. Obviously, our success depends on more than one 4-year term. Trump has selected a young and charismatic (Catholic) vice-president who he hopes will carry the torch forward. Our long term success to change our society also requires us to engage in activism, change the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens, refute the lies, and continue to elect Pro-Life candidates for Congress down the ballot. In this way, we can pass legislation that will give women every reason to protect the life of her own baby. Family life is thereby restored, and children are loved and reared with values that respect others. Let us hope and pray.